


Undone: Companion Pieces

by tacosandflowers



Series: by the prospect of the touch, by the memory of the feel [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Archaeology, Bellarke, F/M, Slow Burn, of the Paleolithic variety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-15 12:15:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 39,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3446819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tacosandflowers/pseuds/tacosandflowers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She rose from her chair and looked him up and down like she was sizing him up and deciding in her mind how much shit she would give him that summer. She propped one hand on her hip and cocked it out just so and it made him remember what a nightmare it was to have a total fox for a nemesis.</p><p>“Fine,” she said.</p><p>“It’s no secret that we dislike each other,” he started to say, but she cut him off with a low chuckle.</p><p>“That’s an understatement."</p><p>*</p><p>Dr. Bellamy Blake and Dr. Clarke Griffin run an archaeological site every summer, and they've been at each other's throats for years. This season, things are different. Bellamy is tired of fighting. A set of companion pieces--that has evolved into a full companion piece--to my other story, We Are Undone by Each Other, told from Bellamy's perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. May 2012

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This and the upcoming chapters are companion pieces to my completed story, We Are Undone by Each Other, which is told entirely from Clarke’s POV. Finishing that story made me realize that I had to let some Bellamy shine through, too. You will most likely want to read that story first to get some background on the setting for these, or you can piece it together as we go. Long story short: Bellamy and Clarke are scientists working on an archaeological excavation in France and they want to kiss each other and kill each other in equal measure. I’ll be updating these off and on as I find the time. I hope you enjoy!

 

 

**May 2012**

 

They hated each other at first sight.

Bellamy hadn’t expected that.

He’d been high on life that morning, driving through French farm country in an old Jeep to L'Arche, the archaeological site he was going to work on that summer, radio blasting, sun shining and everything a brilliant green. Everything was coming up Bellamy. He was about to finish his Ph.D. in paleolithic archaeology, on the cusp of launching his career. He’d been fascinated by the L’Arche site for years, and after tying up the excavation he and his graduate supervisor had been working on in Spain, he was thrilled to dig in to this next project. This place, if everything went well, could be where he did the most important work of his life.

It didn’t take very long after jumping out of the Jeep in front of an ancient-looking farmhouse for him to realize that everything was not going to go well.

Exhibit A: short blonde tempest storming out of said farmhouse shooting daggers at him with her eyes.

He knew who she was, of course. Clarke Griffin, grad student of one of the lead researchers here. He’d never met her before in person, but they’d been on conference calls together with their supervisors as they made plans for the field season, and he’d seen her picture at the top of her profile on her university department’s website.

He’d thought she was hot. He’d thought she had the potential to make his time at L’Arche very interesting in a “let’s get naked” kind of way, if he played his cards right.

And then, within five seconds of his actual arrival at the site, she’d blown those cards out of his hand and basically set them all on fire.

As he climbed out of the Jeep, she stormed up to him with an icy smile on her face and his brain ceased to function other than to play the following two lines on repeat:

 _She’s way hotter in person_.

and

_This is the scariest female I’ve ever encountered in my entire life._

They didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “Welcome to L’Arche, Blake,” she said as she gripped his hand in hers like she wanted to crush it. “If your Paleo idiots get in the way of my bio team, I’ll kill you.”

He tightened his hand. If she wanted to play it this way, he’d play it this way. “My ‘paleo idiots’ will be too busy making this site relevant again to get in the way of your bio nerds, Princess.”

He took pleasure, then, in the widening of her eyes, the shaking of that icy expression off her face. “Excuse me? What did you just call me?” she asked, the anger in her voice melting through.

He didn’t know where the nickname came from, but it fit her. He knew women like this. He knew what her CV looked like, knew the advantages she’d had to help get her to this point in her life, where she was basically running an archaeological dig. As someone who’d had to work his ass off to get here, who had had _zero_ of the advantages a person like Clarke Griffin had, he knew he had to fight right back in the face of entitlement. He’d been in academia long enough to recognize this battleground.

“You heard me,” he said, and her eyes flashed again. He looked at her stubborn mouth, her clenched fists, her still-clean field clothes, and he knew that this was just the first of many showdowns between them.

Bellamy figured he had two ways to deal with this: fight her with brains, which he would have no problem doing, and fight her with charm, which he usually used for different means, but whatever. Women were complicated creatures, but he liked to think he knew his way around them. She might not actually buy the charm, but it sure would piss her off.

So he smiled at her, his meanest smile, hitched his duffel onto his shoulder, and walked past her towards the tents without a second look.

He could feel her eyes burning a hole in his back as he went.

It was going to be a long field season.


	2. May 2015

## May 2015

He knows she's in her cabin.

 

She hadn't been in the group that came to greet him when he arrived, unsurprisingly, and he knows from his stop by the lab that she’s not there, either. Octavia says nobody is out at the dig, so she has to be in her cabin.

 

Which is right next to his cabin.

 

Which is the fucking worst.

 

He manages to put off actually going to his cabin for a few hours, but eventually he can’t put it off any longer. He really has to drop his bags off before he finishes unloading the camp truck.

 

The glade in which their cabins sit is beautiful, green and fresh and full of life like it is every late spring. He eyes her door as he walks through the clearing towards his own, and he can practically feel her in there, closed off to the rest of the world. He can always sense Clarke, has been able to for years. He knows her energy and the feel of her mind spinning constantly. As for knowing what's actually going on inside of that mind? Well, that's a different matter altogether.

 

His stomach churns. This is going to be a nightmare of a summer. Not only does he have to work with her every day, he has to sleep within fifteen feet of her every night. He'd been fine with this arrangement when it first began back in 2013—they were in charge, they got the cabins, yeah it was kind of weird being that close but whatever, they each got their own freestanding structure, end of story.

 

And then last summer happened, and it’s different now. He's not okay with it anymore. But his only other choice is to go back to sleeping in a tent with the students, which, no thanks. So, suffering it is.

 

He takes a deep breath and stomps up the steps into his cabin. She'll hear him, certainly, and he doesn't bother to do anything quietly. He throws his clothes and bedding in the general direction of his twin mattress, stacks his books on the floor, examines the space in which he will suffer for the next two and a half months.

 

He can't look at his bed without thinking of her being in it.

 

Yeah, he thinks he'll avoid being here as much as he can. He’s slept on the floor of the lab before, he can do it again if need be.

 

He’s going through what he needs to do the rest of the day—listing errands is much better than thinking about what Clarke is doing, which is where his mind keeps wandering—when he accidentally kicks over his water bottle.

 

"Goddammit," he curses, and then kicks the thing again for good measure.

 

He's wound too tight and he knows it, but he doesn't how else to be. The entire trip here, both in the air and on the road, he's been an anxious mess. It’s a mix of the anticipation of finally seeing her again—hearing her voice, seeing the flash of her quick-moving body in the sun, catching the scent of her shampoo in her hair, all the sensory aspects of Clarke that it kills him to admit he has missed like crazy—and the dread of not knowing how things are actually going to be between them this time around.

 

They'd ended the previous season on a bad note, and knowing Clarke—and he _knows_ Clarke, and the way she pushes—they aren't likely to begin this summer on anything else.

 

He toys with the idea of going over to her cabin and just breaking the ice, but he can't do it. Call him a pussy, but his last trip to her cabin ended with him shoved out the door in his underwear, so he’s not exactly looking forward to entering that space any time soon unless things shift majorly between them.

 

And since he’s had no chance to talk to her about what happened, he’s guessing they have a long way to go before he’s welcome in her space again in any capacity.

 

He’s also not sure he can handle seeing her again without anyone else there to buffer the interaction. The one time he saw her over the course of the winter he was so overwhelmed that he had to get away, and that was in a room full of people. The whole running away thing—it’s not great for relationships, but it sure feels good at the time.

 

He’s pictured the moment he'll see her again so many times over the last few months, imagined all the things he wants to say to her but never will, that he knows he isn't ready for this. He isn't ready to deal with her, and he isn't ready to deal with the person he becomes when he's around her. He knows that if he has the chance to put it off a little longer, he should take it.

 

So he heads out of the cabin and down the path towards the tents to see what Monty and Jasper are up to. Anything, to get away from her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's another one, because I'm excited and on a roll today. I'm not sure how I'll pace the chapter posting. Some days there'll be more than one, other times it may take a little while between chapters. The chapter headings correspond to the date headings in We Are Undone. Thanks for reading and being awesome!


	3. May 2015, part 2

## May 2015, part 2

 

Bellamy is in the middle of killing time with Jasper and Monty—they’ve brought a hacky sack to camp this year, which is going to be interesting—when Octavia walks up.

“You guys are playing _hacky sack_? Don’t you have a lab to set up?” she asks.

Bellamy shrugs. “We just got here. Let us relax a little bit.”

“Yeah, you’re starting to sound like Clarke,” Monty says.

The glare Octavia skewers Monty with in response to that remark goes to show just how much truth there is to it, Bellamy thinks. His little sister is learning from the best in that department.

And in other departments as well. Octavia is Clarke’s grad student, has been for a while now, and they’ll continue working closely together for the next few years as Clarke mentors Octavia and trains her to be a biological anthropologist. Bellamy had encouraged the pairing, and they’re an interesting combination. Clarke is young for a professor, and they’re both headstrong women, so they have a much different dynamic than most professors and their students. He finds it funny when they tangle, and beyond terrifying when they team up against him.

Octavia edges her way into their circle and takes a kick at the hacky sack. “This is a weird game,” she says.

“It’s the best,” Monty says. “Hippies are smart.”

“You’re just saying that because you are one,” Bellamy says.

Monty shakes his head. “Nah, dude. Just because I smoke weed doesn’t make me a hippie.”

“Whatever,” Bellamy replies. “As long as you’re not hacky sacking or high when we’re working.”

Monty just giggles. He’s one of the best paleoethnobotanists in the world, even at his young age, and they’re lucky to have him.

“So,” Octavia says as she kicks at the hacky sack and misses. “You seen Clarke yet?”

Bellamy ignores her as Monty kicks the little beanbag back into the air.

“I’d take that as a ‘no,’” Jasper says, kicking it towards Octavia.

Bellamy reaches out and grabs the hacky sack in his fist.

“Hey, that’s cheating,” Monty protests.

“If you idiots know what’s good for you,” Bellamy grumbles, “you’ll cut this shit out right now.”

“What, the hacky sack?” Octavia asks, feigning innocence and receiving storm clouds in return.

She and Jasper had been witness to the tail end of his last fight with Clarke at the close of the previous field season, and he’s sure they’ve filled Monty—and probably everyone—in on what they saw. Gossip is rampant in a small, isolated setting like this, so he wants to nip it in the bud.

“Don’t worry, Bellamy,” Jasper says. “Everybody’s been wanting you and Clarke to get together forever anyway. We’re cheering for you.”

“There is _nothing_ to cheer for,” he says darkly.

Jasper’s face falls, and Monty frowns.

Octavia just rolls her eyes. “Look, you’ll have to see her eventually. And she is basically the boss of my entire life until I finish grad school, so, the less drama the better.”

“Owwwww,” Monty says as Bellamy throws the hacky sack at him with more force than necessary.

“I’m going to walk over to the dig,” he says. He can’t deal with this right now.

 

**

 

Later, he has to go to the lab and start getting set up, but he makes sure he times it so that Octavia is in there too, and not just Clarke on her own. He surveys the boxes in the camp truck and decides it’s now or never before grabbing one and heading for the farmhouse.

Octavia and Clarke are sitting next to each other when he walks in, their heads close together as they huddle over some papers at one of the lab benches.

Octavia spots him first. “Hey Bell,” she says, and then turns to Clarke with a slightly alarmed expression on her face.

So much for keeping it cool. 

“Hey,” Bellamy grunts back.

And then nobody says anything, because of course this was going to be awkward no matter what, so why not make it as awkward as possible? He sighs inwardly.

After a while, Octavia can’t take it anymore. “Well! This has been fun, guys, but I hear a campfire calling my name. So if it’s okay with you, Clarke, I think I’m gonna head out.”

Clarke nods and gives her the go-ahead, and then she becomes very focused on the pile of papers in front of her. 

Octavia struts towards him on her way to the door with a look on her face that he knows means trouble. She rises onto her toes to give him a kiss on the cheek—another sign that she’s up to no good—and puts her mouth close to his ear.

“Don’t be a dick,” she whispers, and then she’s gone, out the door, leaving the two of them alone.

Clarke is digging her pen into her notepad, a habit of hers when she gets nervous. After a few very energetic scribbles, she takes a breath.

“Hi,” she says.

Her word falls into the room between them. After imagining this in his head for months, the simplicity of the greeting feels out of place.

“Hi,” he replies, and he doesn’t know what else to say so he walks over to a lab bench on the opposite side of the room and drops the box heavily onto it. This causes some equipment at the other end to teeter.

“Careful, you’ll knock the total station onto the floor,” Clarke says.

“Whatever,” he growls, falling immediately back into the dynamic they established years ago of her being the responsible one and him being the rebellious one. Not that knocking a piece of surveying equipment—total stations are expensive but they aren’t, like, mass spectrometer expensive, and besides, it’s safe inside its Pelican case—onto the floor is rebellion, really, but he knows it irks her when he’s careless. Plus, he’s in his thirties now, he’ll take whatever form of rebellion he can.

He can’t look at her yet, but he can feel her watching him, waiting to see what he’ll do next, and he wants to irk her more. He has a box to unpack, so he begins to pull things out of it and toss them onto the bench every which way, which he knows drives her crazy.

“Octavia and I were just going over the excavation plan for the northwestern corner of the new cavern,” she says as he’s in the middle of piling up some percussion core supplies. “Part of it depends on what your team is planning for the western wall, so if you could give us your schedule when you have it ready, that would be great.”

Her voice is so even, so normal, so professorial, and he knows he expected her to be like this, but actually hearing it is another matter. He chucks a box of sample bags in the general direction of the total station and spins around to finally face her.

“Business as usual, is that the plan?” he asks, hating the thread of uncertainty in his voice.

Clarke sighs, her face assuming its indifferent mask, one of his least favourite of her expressions. “We have an excavation to manage, Bellamy. We don’t have time for hurt teenager feelings.”

Her words are like a punch in the gut. The way she says the word “feelings” like she’s talking about some kind of vermin. Clarke Griffin doesn’t do feelings—that much he deduced from her reactions whenever he let his own slip through the summer before. He knows this about her, knows it’s not something he can change about her, and yet her words belittle him in a way that slices through his defensive wall of _That’s just the way Clarke is_.

Because he does have feelings, and they hurt like hell, and he hates that she knows it. He decides that if she’s going to address it directly, he will too.

“So we’ll just be assholes to each other like usual and pretend we didn’t spend most of last summer screwing each other’s brains out?” he replies.

He is momentarily gratified by the shock on her face at the imagery his words bring into both of their minds, because it’s not a romantic way of putting it but it captures the urgency of the way they had been together. He doesn’t care how much she wants to pretend it never happened.

He knows how much he’s gotten to her by the force with which she digs her pen into her notepad, schooling her thoughts until she’s able to respond with her eerie calmness.

“Works for me.”

Of course it was going to be this way. Maybe a piece of him was holding out for the incredibly small chance that she might say something else, say that no, that doesn’t work for her, that she wants him again, but that piece dies with her words.

“Fine. If that’s what you want,” he says.

At the end of the day, he will always give Clarke what she wants.

“It’s what’s best for everyone,” she continues, ever the leader, making this about the group and not about them. She chooses that moment to go back to work and act like he’s not in the room, another technique perfected over years of sharing lab space.

He lets himself watch her for a moment, but not for too long. She’s the same and she’s different all at once, another year gone by. Her hair is longer than he remembers. His fingers twitch to touch it and he forces himself to turn away and organize his equipment, but he only lasts another minute or two before he has to get out of there.

The lab can wait. He needs a drink.

 


	4. July 2012

## July 2012

Constant arguing with Clarke aside, the field season had been kind to Bellamy. His team had been finding an incredible amount of artifacts, and there were indications that the site was much larger than they’d originally thought. L’Arche really was a place he could work for years, the kind of site archaeologists dreamed of finding. He knew he’d gotten lucky.

And he was getting lucky in other ways, too. L’Arche that summer happened to be host to several attractive female grad students who were more than happy to entertain Bellamy after a night of drinking around the campfire. It was too easy, really. Nobody seemed to want anything serious—well, the redhead was getting a little clingy—but for the most part it was a ready supply of casual hook-ups and he was more than fine with that.

He knew Clarke noticed, and he knew she didn’t like it. She’d judged his every move all summer and it drove him fucking bonkers, the feeling of being constantly evaluated. She couldn’t find fault with his work, he knew that much—he was good at what he did and he took pride in that.

Which was why it drove him crazy when she started going after the way he ran his lab.

The day had started out innocently enough. The lab was insanely busy at the end of the summer as all of the researchers worked to get artifacts bagged and tagged, samples sorted and packed, and data entered into the system before they had to pack up and go home. The bustle of bodies in the room was a bit overwhelming at times, but there was no way around it.

Data entry had a way of making people a little crazy. Bellamy and his team traded off the more onerous tasks to keep it from getting too overwhelming, but by late in the afternoon, things had gotten a little out of hand.

Jasper was at the computer, singing a strange song he’d come up with as he entered numbers into Excel. It sounded like a mashup of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” and bad reggaeton, and after two hours of it, Monty finally snapped. Monty, who was sorting fossil samples into small plastic bags at a different lab bench, decided the best way to communicate his displeasure to Jasper was to shoot spitballs at him.

Bellamy snickered at the scene in front of him. He’d been hauling things around the site all day and telling people what to do, and he was tired and ready to be entertained by his friends. The slight precipitation of spitballs grew into heavier and heavier flurries until a particularly soggy one landed on the back of Jasper’s neck.

“What the—ewww!” Jasper yelped, jumping up from his stool, his hands flying up to defend himself from further attack. One of his arms swung wide and collided with a tray of tiny bones resting on top of a box, set out of the way to make more space for Clarke, who was working on the bench down from Jasper.

Everyone froze as the bones flew up into the air until Clarke’s arms shot out and grabbed the tray. She held it under the bones as they fell from the air, managing to catch some while the rest hit the floor and at least one plopped into a bucket of water.

Silence.

Clarke set the tray down carefully and then looked around, her eyes wide, and he knew in his gut that this was going to be a big one.

“Jasper,” she said in a scarily calm voice, “What the fuck did you just do?”

Jasper fumbled with his words, his body nervous as he looked at Bellamy and then at Clarke. “I am _so_ _sorry_ , Clarke.”

“Do you know what was on that tray?” Clarke continued. “That was a month’s worth of bone samples we’re trying to get packed up so we can take them back to the lab in Vancouver. A _month_.”

“I, uh, I was just—it’s Monty’s fault too!” Jasper said desperately.

Monty had guilty look on his face. “Please, Clarke,” he begged, as if he was awaiting an execution. “I’ll do anything to make it up to you.”

Bellamy smirked, finding it funny how scared those two were of Clarke, until Clarke turned to him, her eyes on fire.

“You,” she said in a low voice. “This is _your_ fault.”

She started towards him. It was the end of a hot day, and her face was flushed from both the heat and her anger. Her hair was down, loosened from the braid she normally kept it in while she was working. She wore a tank top that he would call skimpy and she would call practical, so he was treated to a generous view of the sheen of sweat across her cleavage.

She drove him up the wall, but Clarke Griffin had the best set of tits he’d ever seen in his life.

He had to fight to keep his gaze from resting on them, and he thought for the millionth time that summer how unfair it was that such an uptight, practical, _inaccessible_ woman had such liberal taste when it came to necklines. It was a cruel and unusual punishment.

Monty and Jasper were scrambling to pick up the bones but Clarke wasn’t paying attention to them. She was in his face instead.

“You’re just sitting there laughing while these two screw around trashing the place. What a pathetic excuse for an archaeologist,” she said.

And then she shouldered past him and stormed out the door and into the clearing.

Bellamy’s jaw clenched at the insult and he spun around to follow her.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me, Clarke!” he said before going through the door.

“I’m not the joke here, Blake,” she yelled back.

Shit. She was heading for the dig. He followed her because he wouldn’t put it past her to sabotage his part of the site in revenge.

“We haven’t finished this conversation, and you’re running away like a child,” he said as he caught up to her.

“You’re calling me a  _child_?” she asked incredulously. “You and your goon squad nearly destroyed a month’s worth of my samples with your carelessness just now. I can’t believe a respectable degree-granting institution let you through its doors with the way you run your lab.”

His temper flared. He was fucking done with Clarke Griffin judging him.

“Oh, this shit again? We both know you think I’m not good enough for your precious Ivy League, Princess, but you’ll just have to deal with the fact that I earned my way here,” he said fiercely.

She stopped in her tracks at the word “Princess”—he knew she hated that nickname with the fire of a thousand suns. And then she whipped around and he almost ran into her.

“I told you to never. Fucking. Call. Me. That. Again.”

They were suddenly standing very close together in the woods, and the awareness of his proximity to her body washed over him, warring with his anger. An image flashed into his mind, suddenly, of what it would be like to grab her and kiss her, to hitch her up to his waist, back her up against a tree, and fuck her until she screamed his name, her hair tumbling over her shoulders and her tank top tugged down to her waist.

It wasn’t the first time he’d imagined such a scenario this summer. He ignored the rush of blood to his groin, pushed the thought down, and dug back into the fight.

“I’ll call you whatever the hell I want,” he growled, leaning in close.

Her hands shot out and pushed against his chest and she shoved him back, his chest burning where she touched him. He scrambled to regroup. He couldn’t believe she had _literally pushed him_.   

Her stance indicated that she was about to launch into a rant. “ _You_  will treat me with respect,” she began. “You think you’re such hot shit strutting in here with your NSF money, screwing all the camp bimbos, acting like you’re God’s gift to women and archaeology. Well guess what, Blake. I was here before you, and I’m going to be here long after you’re gone. I don’t need your incompetent ass getting in the way of  _my_  field season. So back the fuck off and stay out of my way for the rest of the summer.”

His mind was full of searing white anger as he processed her words, and he barked out a laugh.

“You don’t own this place, Clarke.” And then he went for the jugular. “Or did your grandparents buy it for you like they bought the new wing of that museum at Yale?”

Hurt flashed through her eyes and he felt high on the pain he was causing, because it had been an incredibly long summer of going back and forth with her like this, and he was just _done_.

“Leave my family out of this,” she spat back. 

He laughed again, feeling almost delirious at this point. It was time to bring this to an end. “We share a lab. And unless you find us another old farmhouse to repurpose, it’s going to stay that way. So why don’t you stop being such an entitled bitch and we can all just relax and finish the season on a good note.” 

Her hand flashed so quickly he didn’t see it coming and suddenly there was nothing but the sound of her hand slapping him and the sting of his flesh.

Her face filled with power, then, and she looked at him like a queen would look at criminal peasant or something else she has just punished. He was equal parts terrified and turned on and he hated himself for it.

His mouth opened to speak, but she cut him off. “I hate you. So much more than I ever thought I could hate someone. But I have to work with you. So, if you want to not get murdered before the season ends, it’s probably best that you steer clear of my half of the lab, and of me in general, after that shit you pulled today.”

He didn’t want her words to hurt him. She couldn’t really hate him as much as she seemed to want to, right? Her chest heaved with the exertion of the altercation and he had to fight once again to keep his eyes on her face. 

He straightened out his stance, looking down at her as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“I’m not afraid of you, Griffin,” he said.

Her bottom lip tightened into a stubborn set and she suddenly jerked her knee up like she was going to knee him in the nuts. He flinched and jumped back slightly, and was relieved when he realized she wasn’t actually going to completely kick his ass out here.

“Yeah right,” she said, and then she stomped back down the trail in the direction they came from, smirking angrily at him as she went by.

How an angry smirk could be so seductive was beyond him, but by the time she disappeared around the bend in the trail he was such a confused mix of fury and arousal that he knew he needed to take a few minutes to cool down before he could be around people again.

He looked up at the sky through the trees and prayed to the universe for help surviving the rest of the summer.


	5. May 2015, part 3

 

## May 2015, part 3

 

They’ve been fighting all week. It’s awful. Bellamy wishes he could pass more of the responsibility off to Jasper and Monty so he could avoid dealing with her, but there are certain things he can only accomplish with Clarke’s input and every little decision becomes a depressing battlefield.

It had been a relief when the field school students arrived, because things suddenly got so busy that there really wasn’t time to worry about personal drama. In addition to being researchers, they are educators running an official field school under their universities’ names, and they can’t afford for things to go wrong. So they have been focusing on that, the necessity for things to go well steering their course.

But even the chaos of wrangling college kids can’t erase the underlying issues that seem to make their way to the surface more often than is comfortable.

It’s hot as hell one morning and he and Monty are standing over a pit they’ve just begun excavating, strategizing about how to proceed, when he catches a flash of blonde out of the corner of his eye.

She is storming towards him and she is clearly unhappy. He settles in for a confrontation.

“What the actual  _fuck_ , Bellamy?” she seethes as she plants her feet and glares up at him.

“Well hello, Clarke,” he says. He has no idea what this is about, but judging by the expression on her face, something has gone wrong and it’s his fault.

“Why do you have your idiots crawling all over the western wall scaffolding? Jasper nearly killed one of our field school students just now when he dropped something on her head.”

Bellamy’s gut clenches. They haven’t had a field school-related fiasco in over twelve hours and he’s been enjoying the quiet. Also, he worries about his students. They’re still kids, for the most part.

As usual, Clarke doesn’t wait for his response.

“Did you even  _look_  at the schedule I put on your desk? You know we’re working in the northwestern corner in the afternoons all week, and that means nobody on the scaffolding!”

Bellamy’s head starts to pound as he crosses his arms over his chest. “I sent him up there to grab something. We need to fix it before we can start work up there. Nobody is  _actually_  working up there yet, so you can cool your jets.”

He knows this is a ridiculous suggestion—Clarke Griffin does not _cool her jets_ —but a man can try.  

She’s _mad_. “It doesn’t matter whether he’s  _actually_  doing archaeology or not, Bellamy. Nobody on the scaffolding while people are working below. That’s the rule and you know it!”

He can’t help but notice that this is another instance in a long line of altercations where she comes after him for something somebody else has done. It’s like she seeks this out, in spite of her firm denial of wanting any involvement with him. He finds this simultaneously infuriating and gratifying.

If she’s going to be pushy about it, he’ll give her what she seems to be asking for: a piece of his mind.

“Oh,” he says, his anger flowing. “So you’d rather I just leave the broken piece up there instead of taking advantage of some down time when Raven can actually fix it? Because you seem to think you own all of her time! And if I didn’t get this taken care of now, we might never get anything done on that goddamn wall! So excuse me for working around  _you_ , Clarke!”

Raven is one of Clarke’s closest friends. Bringing Raven into it is a surefire way to really piss Clarke off. And he wants to piss her off. He can feel her mind spinning like a top, and he’s surprised he doesn’t see steam coming out of her ears.

“How dare you accuse me of commandeering Raven’s time like that?” she demands.

“Because that’s exactly what you do!” he yells.

“I do not do that!” she yells right back.

He steps closer. “Yes, you do! You act like you own Raven, and you act like you own the entire Ark site, but you don’t. We are equals here, Clarke. This place is mine as much as it’s yours. And I’ll do what I have to do to get things done around here.”

Clarke makes a noise because she is too mad to talk and in spite of his anger he has trouble keeping a straight face, because it is one of his favourite parts of Angry Clarke, the part that starts making noises when she can’t articulate something.

“This is about  _safety_ , Bellamy! Not about your inferiority complex,” she says once she can find words again.

His temper snaps. “My  _what_?” he yells.

“Every time you screw up you try to cover your ass with your ‘we’re equals here’ bullshit when it has nothing to do with the matter at hand. It’s like you feel the need to remind me, constantly, of what a big, important, male academic you are. Which doesn’t matter  _at all_  when members of your team are dropping things onto our students’ heads!”

Bellamy just stares at her for a moment. She’s in her work clothes, dirty from a morning of working in the cave, her hair escaping from her braid. She’s in teacher mode and he wants nothing more than to yank the tie from her hair and run his hands through it until it flies free, but that’s not an option. And really, what the fuck is she saying to him? It’s the same goddamn thing they’ve been hashing out for years.

“I can’t believe the shit coming out of your mouth right now!” he says finally, his frustration bursting through.

“I can’t believe the shit you think you’re entitled to, you asshole!”

Great. This topic. Again. Fine, he’ll bite. He always wins these arguments, because in these debates, the privileged are always at fault. And Clarke is privileged, there’s no way around that.

“Oh, you want to talk entitlement?” he challenges. “Bring it on.”

Clarke actually stomps her foot on the ground and he pretends he doesn’t notice what the motion does to her breasts, which are quite nicely encased in one of her work tank tops. It doesn’t matter how horrible their fights are—he will always be distracted by Clarke’s breasts.

She’s in his face again. “Keep your goons off the scaffolding when people are working on the burials underneath!”

At this point he’s just angry and tired and sick of her berating him, so he brings it to the next level. Anything to push this over the edge so it will just end and they can get back to work. “I’d consider it if you weren’t being such a massive bitch right now, Clarke!”

A beat of silence. The insult tastes bitter his tongue, and he worries that he may have gone too far.

“Fuck you, Bellamy! Fuck you and your inflated ego and your blatant disregard for everything that keeps things running smoothly around here! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and make sure our student isn’t  _dead_  thanks to you.”

And then she whirls around and leaves before he can get another word in.

“Whoa,” Monty says as she walks away. He’s been watching them the entire time like he’s watching one of his beloved MMA fights. “I hope the kid’s okay.”

Bellamy is angry and tired and sad. “Can it, Green,” he says, exhaustion bleeding through.

He watches her go, and he knows that it doesn’t matter what he does or what he says. It’s going to be like this. The two of them simply cannot function otherwise. It’s worse than he ever imagined it could be because he can’t stay mad at her, not even while they’re in the middle of a fight. If she didn’t keep provoking him with more insulting language he would give up right away and beg for peace.

But peace is elusive and there’s nothing he can do to change that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm working hard to get these earlier chapters done so I can take my time with the longer, meatier ones. I just laid out the full set of chapters I'm going to do from Bellamy's perspective and I'm so excited for what's to come. More angsty pining for the time being and then the real fun starts... :D


	6. May 2013

## May 2013

When Bellamy returned to camp the next summer, all was well in his world. He’d finished and defended his dissertation, meaning he was now officially Dr. Bellamy Blake.

He loved the way that sounded. For a kid who’d grown up poor in a world stacked against him, seeing the prefix “Dr.” in front of his name felt particularly amazing. There were so many times he thought he would never make it here, achieving his dream. A lifetime of hard work was paying off.

And to make things even better, he had a job. A real, full-time, assistant professor job at a university in Vancouver.

Which is where Clarke happened to live, and would continue to live, having finished her own Ph.D. and gotten a job at the other university in town. Clarke, who couldn’t be more clear about how much she despised him. And he wasn’t her biggest fan, either.

He wondered if she knew yet, about him finishing school and getting a job in her city. Probably. Their grad supervisors were close, so he wouldn’t be surprised if she’d been filled in the same way he had. _She must be thrilled_ , he though wickedly as he rolled up to camp for his second season at L’Arche.

This summer was different because this time he and Clarke were in charge. Their supervisors, happy with their newly-graduated former students, had officially handed over the reigns to the younger professors. They’d both known this was coming, had endured multiple conference calls to discuss the details, but actually being here made it finally feel real.

He was in charge.

With her.

One of the perks of being in charge was getting upgraded from the tent village to one of the small, private cabins reserved for the lead researchers, that were situated in a clearing slightly removed from the rest of the camp.

Bellamy knew by the boxes stacked on the porch of the cabin on the left that Clarke had already claimed the one with the bigger bed, _of course_. It wasn’t fair. He was taller than she was and he needed more bed space.

He had to decide, however, if he wanted to start a fight about that, or if he wanted to just let is slide and save his energy for the other arguments they were inevitably going to have. He’d been thinking a lot about how to approach this summer. Less fighting was better for everyone, but they would have to agree to some terms at the beginning to make it work. 

He spent a few minutes unpacking his things and then steeled himself for his first face-to-face meeting in nine months with the most infuriating woman on the planet.

He walked over to her cabin and onto her porch, knocking on the doorframe to signal his presence.

“Hey,” he said.

Clarke was engrossed in some work at her desk, but he didn’t miss the way her body stiffened.

“Blake,” she said coolly, not bothering to look up from whatever she was reading.

He sighed. This was off to a bad start. “Look. We have to make this work.”

She looked up at him finally, her blue eyes focused and clear. “I know.”

Wait, what? Agreement? Bellamy is surprised, but he’ll take it.

“Between running the field school and running our own research teams, this is all going to go much more smoothly if we’re not at each other’s throats,” he continued.

She rose from her chair and looked him up and down like she was sizing him up and deciding in her mind how much shit she would give him that summer. She propped one hand on her hip and cocked it out just so and it made him remember what a nightmare it was to have a total fox for a nemesis.

“Fine,” she said.

“It’s no secret that we dislike each other,” he started to say, but she cut him off with a low chuckle.

“That’s an understatement,” she said.

Bellamy’s exasperation was not helped by hearing her laugh like that for the first time ever. He knew her spiteful laugh well, but this was... He didn’t know what it was. She was throwing him off.

“Can we just have a truce or something?” he begged finally. “We’re both done with school now, we have jobs; it’s not like we’re competing with each other anymore. We both need this dig to succeed for the good of our careers. Are you willing to work together with me on this?”

She levelled her eyes at him, and they locked into a staring contest. He realized he was sizing her up the same way he’d felt sized up at the beginning of this conversation, trying to get a read on where this was going to go. They were kind of acting like prize-fighters, yes, but the dynamic between them was different now, and he realized it was because their roles had shifted and they were in charge, together.

She surprised him by sticking her hand out to shake his. He took it.

“I’ll work with you, for the good of the students and the research. But piss me off and you’re dead, Blake,” she said.

Ah, there it was. The old threatening voice. The one that nagged him so well. It was so familiar to him that he found himself smiling as things fell back into place, their moment of accord fading now that they’d shaken on their agreement.

Clarke looked at him curiously for a second before her expression assumed familiar derision.

“Also, if you could bear in mind that our non-soundproof cabins are close together when you embark on your womanizing this summer, I’d really appreciate it,” she said.

Shit. Of course she would bring this up. He’d had a good time the summer before, he wouldn’t deny that, and he knew Clarke judged him for it.

But he’d already been thinking about it, and he knew that this summer was going to be different in that respect. It wasn’t a big deal when he was a grad student messing around with other grad students. But now he was in charge, a field school professor, and he knew that, for the sake of professionalism, he was going to have to keep it in his pants. Or at least be more discreet about it.

He certainly wouldn’t be entertaining any ladies in his cabin with Clarke Griffin sleeping fifteen feet away.

He decided to tease her. “What’s the matter, Clarke? Jealous you haven’t had your turn yet?” he said and he laughed, surprised when she blushed.

“Fuck off, Blake,” she said, shoving him towards the door without any real force (and he knew what real force from Clarke felt like, see Exhibit B: short blonde tempest slapping the shit out of him in the woods the summer before). He found himself smiling again as he left to go to the lab.

He remembered something and turned back to face her where she was still standing on her porch. “Hey. Congratulations on finishing your Ph.D.,  _Doctor_ Griffin.”

She shrugged like it was no big deal. “Thanks,” she said, and her voice sounded genuinely thankful. He wondered who she had celebrated with, who was there when big things happened in Clarke Griffin’s life. “Um, you too,  _Doctor_  Blake,” she finished after a moment, and then she closed the door.

He watched her cabin for a moment before turning back towards the lab. Maybe things with Clarke this summer would be okay after all.

Or not. They were back at each other’s throats the next day, fighting over who got the extra lab bench.

Nobody was surprised.


	7. June 2015

## June 2015

 

It’s strange being around Clarke all of the time again, he realizes as they settle into a routine. The live in the same city but managed to avoid each other over the off-season. He’d been tempted more than once to seek her out, to try and start a conversation, but knowing Clarke, a move like that would hurt his cause more than help it.

 

Not that he’s particularly sure what his cause is. He just knows they have unfinished business.

 

There had been one exception to their avoidance of each other during the off-season. His heart had leapt into his throat when he opened the email advertising Clarke’s colloquium talk, a mix of thrill—finally, a legitimate excuse to see her—and fear— _shit_ , he has to actually _see_ her.

 

It wasn’t something he could avoid. They were co-researchers on the site, and failing to show up would be a dick move in their colleagues’ eyes. So he timed it in a way that left little opportunity for pre-talk chit chat and slid into the classroom after she’d already begun.

 

She was dressed more conservatively than he’d ever seen her. They’d actually never seen each other outside of L’Arche, so he only knew her in her dirty field clothes and whatever casual wear she threw on after the long, hot days. This version of Clarke was different. She wore a dark suit and her hair was twisted back in a sleek chignon at the base of her skull. Tiny earrings glinted in her lobes, nothing ostentatious but enough shine to convey her classiness. Because Dr. Clarke Griffin was pure class.

 

If she noticed him, she didn’t give any indication until she brought up an overview slide with a map of L’Arche site and her eyes zeroed in on his.

 

"In addition to our team's research on the human remains at L'Arche, there is extensive ongoing archaeological work being carried out by Dr. Bellamy Blake and his Paleolithic team," she said.

 

He nodded in acknowledgement and kept his own serious expression on his face as others in the room turned to look at him, including Octavia, who beamed at him and waved. But inside he was trying to suppress an incredulous laugh. He forgot, at times, that they were in charge of a major excavation and that their peers took them seriously. It was easy in the day to day details of teaching and researching to lose sight of how slick and professional it all seemed on the surface. If only the people in that room knew how things were when he and Clarke were fighting. Or doing other things.

 

Wouldn’t that be a scandal, if that came out. Two scholars sleeping together was nothing major in the long run, when compared to professors leaving their wives for young grad students and other clichés, but it was still a thing that people would talk about.

 

Clarke would _love_ that. Not.

  
By the time the Q &A portion of the talk rolled around Bellamy was planning his exit. He didn’t want to hang around afterwards and have to actually make conversation. He just couldn’t do it. His mind was veering too far into _drag her to her office and unwind that uptight hairstyle and unbutton that blazer_ territory for comfort.

 

He was about to make his way to the door when one of the older professors from Clarke’s department called them both out.   
  
"Very interesting work you're carrying out, Dr. Griffin,” the old man said. “I'm curious, though. You mentioned Dr. Blake's work at the site. Given that the human remains you are studying are likely the same humans who crafted the stone tools and other artifacts Dr. Blake's team is finding—not to mention the incredible new cave paintings discovered there last summer—are the two of you planning on co-authoring any papers together in the near future?"  
  
He watched Clarke’s face as she steeled herself. He could see her body shoring itself up as she prepared to answer what he considered a very interesting question. She cleared her throat first. "We've been busy getting organized just excavating, given the vast amount of new material we found when the new cavern was opened last season, but—"  
  
"It's up for consideration," he said, because he couldn’t resist taking this one. He wasn’t going to let her blow off the potential he knew they had. Everyone turned to look at him. "Dr. Griffin is right that we have a lot of other things to work through first, but we will write together eventually. Let us get our joint funding application submitted and then we can talk co-authorship."  


This made everyone laugh, because he had a way with people and funding jokes were always a hit. It also managed to set up an expectation for co-authorship that he wanted, badly, because he knew it would be good for both of them. So what if he’d pitched the idea in front of an audience. He’d have to thank the old dinosaur later.

 

Clarke gave a practiced, professional smile, and he knew that she knew how good it would be for them, too, even if she didn’t want to admit it outright. If she was mad, she hid it well, and he would hear about it later, surely.

 

But not that day. Not with a room full of people. Or maybe because there was a room full of people.

 

As soon as the applause began at the end of the Q&A, he was gone.

 

And now that it's summer again, he knows they'll have to address what he's proposed, eventually. If nothing else, the looming grant deadline will force the conversation. And now that he's been around her again, he's not sure he's totally ready for that kind of one-on-one interaction. But he's going to have to be. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still rolling, as you see. Thanks for bearing with me through this fun exercise ;)


	8. July 2013

## July 2013

 

Bellamy had been looking forward to the 2013 field season for a lot of reasons. The research, the teaching, having the run of the place, all of it. But he had especially been looking forward to the fact that his sister, Octavia, would be there that summer as a student in the field school.

He'd been thrilled when she got to college and chose to major in anthropology. Of course he would have supported her no matter what she chose, but he couldn’t help but be proud that she was following in his footsteps. In her own way, of course. She didn’t want to be an archaeologist like him, but had rather found her passion in the biological side of things.

Which made their field school at L’Arche the perfect place for her, because she could learn general Paleolithic archaeology from him, and the specialized biological anthropology from Clarke. He’d encouraged her to apply, knowing how valuable the experience would be for her as she went into her senior year of college and started making decisions about her future. He’d been thrilled when she secured a spot in the program.  
  
Bellamy had envisioned the time they would spend together, with him being able to show her his world directly for the first time. It would give them the chance at some quality time, which had been harder and harder for them to find with him in grad school and Octavia in college. They’d never had the money to get her over to his old field site in Spain, but now, as a field school student, she was eligible for scholarship money to cover the cost of tuition, and with Bellamy’s job, he could afford to pay her airfare. Bellamy imagined them working together at the site during the days and then having time to hang out together in the evenings, too. And for the first few weeks, they had that.  
  
And then all of those lovely plans flew out the window, because Octavia got a boyfriend.

Bellamy was livid.  
  
She'd somehow managed to do it in spite of all the precautions he'd taken. Early on in the summer, he had been very clear with every male student at the site, both graduate and undergraduate, about the exact forms of torture they would endure should they choose to put the moves on his sister. She was off limits.  
  
So of course Octavia had gone and fallen for Lincoln, their French site manager, instead.

Octavia told Bellamy that she and Lincoln were dating one evening in July during dinner in the mess hall. If she thought telling him in a public place would make him any less angry, she was wrong. Although it hadn't been that bad—he’d only broken one plate and two glasses.  
  
She'd picked a terrible night to tell him, too. Normally he would have stormed off and starting drinking whiskey—French wine was good and all, but he made sure he had a bottle of rye on hand because, well, he was a man and sometimes a man just needed his rye. But rye was not an option that night, because he had a ton of work to do in the lab.

So after he’d given Lincoln a piece of his mind—he’d managed to hold back on decking the guy, but barely—he carried his ill temper over to the old farmhouse.

Clarke was already in the lab, working away, when he came through the door ready to break something. She took one look at Bellamy and immediately seemed to know what was going on.

“So,” Clarke said. “She told you?”

Bellamy slammed the door, hard.

“Fuck,” he cursed, shaking his head. “I cannot fucking _believe_ she is dating fucking _Lincoln_!”

Clarke just watched him as he kicked at a trashcan.

“What the hell kind of name is Lincoln for a French guy anyway?” he asked.

“Well, his mother is American, so—“

“Oh, I don’t actually care, Clarke,” he spat. “That fucking guy is lucky I didn’t kick his ass just now.”

Clarke shrugged. “Well, I’m happy to hear you refrained from beating up our site manager in front of our students.”

Bellamy grunted. “Barely. _Fuck_. I can’t believe this.”

“What can’t you believe about it?”

Was she serious?

“Nobody touches my sister, Clarke. That’s the rule. When I’m in charge, nobody touches her. I made that crystal clear to every motherfucker in this camp at the beginning of the summer, because I don’t put up with that shit. But the one guy I didn’t say anything to—because I didn’t think I had to worry about our _thirty-four-year-old_ site manager being a problem—is the guy she goes and gets together with! It’s fucking ridiculous!”

Clarke was smirking now, and he wanted to wipe the expression right off her face.

“She’s an adult,” Clarke said.

His temper pulsed. “She’s not even done with college!” he yelled.

“Relax,” Clarke said. “Lincoln’s a good guy. His family owns a vineyard a few hours from here. If Octavia plays her cards right, she could marry into a very old French wine-making family. You should see the old farmhouse, it’s an architectural—“

Oh no, no fucking way was she spouting this crap. He walked over and got in her face, looming over her as his anger blazed. She stood under him with a sheaf of papers in her hands, backed up against the lab bench with nowhere else to go, her smirk still lingering.

“You think this is funny, Griffin?” he asked, his voice low and gravelly. Infuriatingly, she refused to be intimidated by him and instead flipped nonchalantly through her papers before raising her eyes to meet his with that level gaze of hers. She had a calmness to her that she somehow managed to find even as he raged all around her. It had manifested itself more and more over the course of the summer and it confused the hell out of him.

“I think Octavia is free to make her own choices and you should respect that,” she said evenly.

She chose that moment to sneak under his arm and escape across the lab to her computer, where she sat and started typing.

Bellamy felt himself deflate, his anger giving way to something more along the lines of sadness. Because this was about more than just Octavia’s dating life. This was about his sister, who he had raised on his own since he was a sophomore in college, growing up in ways he wasn’t prepared for yet. He braced his hands on the lab bench and stared down at the scuffed black surface.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” he said after a while, “to raise a sister on your own.”

Clarke’s fingers stilled on the keyboard, but she said nothing.

“You don’t understand what it’s like to worry, constantly, about another person,” he continued. “I’ve worked my ass off to make a life for her with the same opportunities as other kids.”

Clarke remained quiet for a moment, and then said, “You’ve clearly done well.”

He jerked his head up in surprise. Did Clarke Griffin just say something… _positive_ about him?

“Really, Bellamy,” she continued. “She’s a senior in college, her grades are amazing, she’s smart and capable enough to get into any graduate program she wants. The world is her oyster, and I’m guessing a lot of that is because of you. What more could you want for her?”

He had to fight to stop his jaw from dropping. This wasn’t how they talked to one another, he and Clarke. But somehow, right now, they were. He shook his head.

“For her not to get knocked up by some farmer in the middle of France?” he responded with a sigh.

Clarke rose from her stool and he knew by the stance she took that the compliments were over and he was about to get a lecture. 

“Okay. First of all, Lincoln isn’t ‘some farmer.’ He has a masters degree in archaeology and has been managing this site for years, so you can stop being so condescending. And second of all, Octavia refilled her birth control prescription last week when we were in the village getting supplies, so you can rest assured she’s not going to get knocked up.”

Whoa. Okay. Not what he wanted to be thinking about, _at all,_ but he supposed that was something. Clarke walked closer, like she was challenging him to object to her reasoning. He was preparing give her a terse response when her hand reached out and rested on his forearm, as if she sensed the tension he held there. 

“I may not be able to understand what it’s like to raise a sister,” Clarke said, “but as a woman, I know what independence and self-sufficiency look like, and she has that. Just… trust her to make her own decisions, Bellamy.”

Her words flooded his brain and his muscles jumped slightly under her touch. He was staring down at where Clarke’s hand rested on his arm, captivated suddenly by the contrast in their skin tones, her small, work-roughened fingers light against his tanned forearm.

Clarke followed his gaze and stared too, a shocked expression crossing her face as if she was just then realizing that she was touching him. She yanked her hand away and retreated back to her computer. He stared after her as she went.

“Are you going to mope in here all night or are you actually going to get some data management done?” she asked, turned away from him, sitting and crossing one leg over the other as her fingers sought her keyboard again.

Words. He knew he should form them, but between his anger with the whole Octavia and Lincoln situation and his… bewilderment at his conversation with Clarke, he decided that maybe it was okay to let them slide for now.

Clarke was already back in her own world, working as if she were alone in the room.

Sitting in front of his own computer, he followed suit and drowned his feelings in data.


	9. June 2015, part 2

## June 2015, part 2

 

Octavia talks to him. She waits a little while after the big fight with Clarke, but not so long that it has slipped completely from his mind. When she brings it up, he’s not surprised.

“You two are fucking idiots,” she says one day as they’re cleaning up at the river after a long day at the site.

“Did you say that to Clarke, too?” he asks.

“I didn’t phrase it exactly like that,” she responds, “But yeah, I did.”

“So you know exactly how unhelpful you’re being,” he says.

She throws a wet towel at him. “You know what I mean, though, right?

He shakes his head and tugs his shirt over his head. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

Octavia lets out an exasperated sigh. “Bellamy, come on.”

“Leave it, Octavia.”

“No,” she says stubbornly. “No, I won’t leave it. I know what happened between you two last summer.”

“As you have made abundantly clear to me over the past year,” Bellamy replies.

“I can’t believe you two,” Octavia says. “Acting like you’re not batshit crazy in love with each other. It’s a goddamn joke.”

Bellamy’s stomach flips over at the word _love_. Octavia knows him too well, knows that this is the way to needle him most painfully—by chipping away at the truth.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says.

She laughs. “Case in point. Look. Deny it all you want, but I know both of you, and I know what I’m talking about.”

He warns her with a glare, and she contains her laughter as she comes over to give him a sisterly slug in the arm before they turn to walk back to camp. 

“Fine," she says. "But seriously, Bell, can you guys go easy on each other? You’re killing me with this fighting crap.”

Bellamy just shrugs. “I can try. But O, you know how we are. It’s like second nature.”

Octavia sighs and shakes her head. “It doesn’t have to be. But I guess you morons will have to figure that out for yourselves.”

He slugs her arm back.

  

**

 

Shortly after Bellamy’s conversation with Octavia, he and Clarke have to work together on the grant application he’d mentioned at her talk back in the winter. They had decided to write it together at the end of last summer, when it became clear that their best chance of getting more funding was to combine forces, but they’ve been putting off actually doing it.

They can’t put it off forever. The deadline in the middle of June is a ridiculous time, he thinks—every archaeologist worth his or her salt is in the field in the summer—but there’s nothing he can do about it. So he braces himself to be alone with her, because that’s the only way they’re going to get this application done.

They’ve been steering clear of each other since their big fight over the scaffolding, so he had been dreading asking Clarke about the application and when they were going to get it done. But when he finally does it she is surprisingly civil, and they agree to meet in the lab one evening after supper.

“Hey,” he says when he arrives, finding her sitting at her computer with a Word document already opened.

“Hey,” she says back. A look of wariness crosses her face for a moment, but it’s quickly replaced by her _get shit done_ face. They’re on a deadline. They don’t have time for any awkwardness or painful back and forth.

“I threw a draft of my section together before I left Vancouver,” she says.

“Well that’s good, because so did I,” he replies.

“Do you want to maybe read what the other has written and go from there?”

He nods. “Yeah, that’s a good place to start.”

They email each other their documents and begin to read, and he’s nervous all of a sudden. He knows that what he’s written is good. He put a lot of thought into it, and he’s confident that they can pull this off. And it’s not like this is the first time Clarke has read his work—she’d given him hell about a journal article he published last year, and she’d even read his dissertation. He’d read hers, too.

But sitting next to Clarke while she reads his writing is strangely intimate. An academic’s writing is what defines him or her. The process of getting words onto a page and shaping them into something that conveys the intended point isn’t easy, and turning those words over to another set of eyes is always a vulnerable moment.

He half expects her to start calling out things she doesn’t like right away, but instead she reads quietly, and he finds himself doing the same. What she’s written so far is good. It’s a fresh take on work she’s already done, and looking forward, she has anticipated how her research question will need to be pitched in order to please this particular funding institution. He’s impressed—not that he ever doubted Clarke would pull through, but as usual she has gone beyond his expectations. He’s lucky to work with her.  

They need a plan to pull it all together. He turns to her when he’s finished reading. “I think if we start with some intro text about the two-pronged approach and build on the publication record already associated with L’Arche, your section would fit really well after that.”

“Yeah, that could work,” she agrees with a nod.

He watches her for a moment and his brain slips back to his conversation with Octavia, and he thinks about how maybe—just maybe—she’s right, that they don’t have to fight all the time.

He looks at the clock. “I have some ideas about how to frame it so it makes sense how the research questions are tied together, but I’m sure you do too, so this will probably work best if we just hammer it out together over the next few hours.”

“Okay,” she says. Her fingers go to her loose hair and she starts weaving it into a braid. In Clarke-speak, this means it’s time to work.

“Should we type on your computer or mine?” she asks once her braid is completed.

They use hers. It’s not a speedy process. They go through every sentence, working the language until it conveys their thoughts clearly and concisely, tinkering with the structure until everything fits together into a tight set of paragraphs that lay out exactly what they’re asking, how they’re going to answer the questions, why the research is important, and how much money they need to get it all done.

Bellamy is amazed when he looks at the clock and it’s nearly midnight. They’ve managed to be in the same room together collaborating on an intense piece of work for over four hours, and nobody has screamed or cried or walked out. It’s a midsummer miracle. 

After they do their final read-through, Clarke uploads the form to the application site and holds her finger over the track pad with a look on her face that’s the same mix of tiredness and elation that he’s feeling. It feels damn good to finish a piece of writing like this, even if it drives the body to the point of delirium.

“Ready?” she asks, and her grin turns wicked, hitting him in the gut because she hasn’t smiled like that in a long time. At least, not around him.  

“As I’ll ever be,” he replies.

Her eyes flash as she pushes her finger down, and it feels like an eternity before the  _“Thank you for submitting your application!”_  screen appears and they can breathe a sigh of relief.

"All we have to do now is wait,” she says.

Bellamy settles back onto his stool. “If they don’t fund this, they’re complete morons."

She raises her eyebrows and chuckles, that low laugh of hers that he loves.

“Hey now," she says, "let’s try and avoid hubris if we can. You never know with these funding agencies.”

Bellamy laughs with her, but he's not feigning confidence. “I know that what we just wrote is the best proposal they’re going to see all year."

“It must be nice, having an ego like that,” Clarke teases. 

God, when was the last time they teased each other? It's been a long time. 

“I’m serious, Clarke,” Bellamy says, and he is. “You and I, we’re good together."

Her eyes widen.

"At this,” he says quickly, pointing at their computers to indicate that he means in a professional capacity, because she is clearly freaking out at the other way his words could be interpreted.

It's too late, though, to stop their minds from following that train of thought. He looks at the lab bench and sees her there the summer before, after a late night of work had turned into something more, when he had tugged her leggings off and set her up there so he could—

Fuck. Stop. _Don't go there_. 

He forces himself to look away from the lab bench and back at Clarke, which is supposed to make things better. But his gaze catches on her lips and he's stuck there for a few moments, stuck on that mouth of hers that has the power to flay him in an instant, or make him the happiest man on the planet, depending on which way she used it.

This is bad. He can't be staring at Clarke's mouth late at night in the lab. It will only lead to trouble. So he forces his eyes upward and dares her to deny that this is heading somewhere dangerous, fast. 

He can feel her mind spinning, and when he finally gets to her eyes he finds that she is now looking at _his_ mouth, and at this point his brain ceases to form coherent thoughts. 

There's a magnetic pull between them, a force he's felt before that he wasn't sure he would ever feel again. It tugs at them both and there's a slight movement as they lean into it, but then Clarke jumps up quickly, breaking the spell.

His heart is hammering. He clenches his fists, the muscles in his arms tightening to absorb the rush coursing through his veins that was prompted by whatever had just happened between them.

Clarke is blushing and stammering, clearly thrown off. 

“I should go to sleep,” she says finally, her husky voice rumbling across his senses.

He just nods dumbly. He wants nothing more than to beg her to stay, so they can—oh he doesn’t know, talk? So he can kiss her until she admits they should never have stopped?

He’s lost. In her, because of her. And he has no idea what to do about it other than pretend that everything is just fine.

She breaks away from his gaze and packs up her things. “Goodnight,” she says as she heads for the door.

He shoves it all back inside and nods. It’s enough.  

After she’s gone, he finds himself looking at the lab bench again, and has to force himself to look away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I find myself writing a different style than We Are Undone in these pieces as Bellamy's voice comes through. I'm a naturally wordy writer, so, believe it or not, We Are Undone was an exercise in using fewer words than I normally would. But with these companion pieces I'm just letting it flow. I also typically write much more detailed smut than I did in We Are Undone (I'm talking about my fics that aren't on AO3 yet, if you're curious I also write Veronica Mars, Hunger Games, and Rookie Blue fics that I will migrate over to this account eventually). So I have a feeling that once the steamier chapters arrive, Bellamy's perspective is going to be a bit more--ahem--thorough than Clarke's was. You've been warned.


	10. August 2013

## August 2013

 

It started out like any other late summer evening. The season was winding to a close, but they still had the final push to get through. Everyone knew each other well enough by that point that all kinds of shenanigans ensued when the students hung out in the evenings. There was a time when Bellamy had participated in such shenanigans, and he’d even seen Clarke relax and have fun a few times with the younger students the summer before.

But now they were in charge. Which meant the days were long, and by the end of each one they were so exhausted and tired of dealing with people that they simply retreated to their cabins to sleep or read or stare at the wall and relish the solitude. Whatever. Bellamy was learning a lot about what Octavia referred to as “self care.”

So he was not thrilled to be woken up one night by a stammering Jasper stumbling onto his porch in a panic.

Bellamy rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as Jasper filled him in on the reason for said panic, Bellamy's blood pressure going up with each awkward sentence.

“What do you mean the wall of pit C-74 has caved in?” Bellamy asked, his voice rising as Jasper's words started to cohere.

“It’s just—we were—I mean—you guys just need to come, like, _now_ ,” Jasper said, unable to stop moving in his nervousness.

Bellamy looked over at his neighbor’s cabin, because he wasn’t doing this alone. “Clarke!” he yelled. “Jasper said—“

Clarke emerged from the door then, fully dressed and pulling on her boots. “I heard him,” she said, and he felt a rush of gratitude because good lord, he did not want to deal with this alone.

He never thought he would admit it, but he knew in that moment how much it was true. He _needed_ Clarke Griffin.

Jasper fumbling around looking guilty reminded Bellamy of what they were dealing with. “Those idiots,” he growled. “What the hell are they doing out there this time of night?”

Clarke shrugged. “Being college kids?” she replied.

He laughed without humor. College kids being college kids were the bane of a field school professor’s existence, as he had learned repeatedly over the course of the summer. Sure, they were going to drink and bang and be silly, but when something went wrong, well, then it was Bellamy and Clarke’s problem. Even funnier was the fact that Jasper was a grad student, so in theory he was supposed to be more on the more responsible end of things.

So much for that.

They made their way quickly to the dig and found everyone crowded around the opening to pit C-74. The students moved to let Clarke and Bellamy through and the next thing he knew he was looking down at Monty holding his ankle and grimacing at the bottom of the pit.

The members of the crowd eyed Bellamy warily, unsure of how hard he was going to come down on them. Octavia looked guilty. Raven curled her lip, daring him to say anything to her. 

“What the hell happened here?” he asked the group in general.

“It’s my fault," Jasper says, wringing his hands. "We were having a fire in the woods to celebrate the full moon when—“

“When you managed to move your party onto a 30,000 year old archaeological site?” Bellamy yelled.

“Just calm down, Bell,” Octavia said as she walked over to him.

Clarke had gone straight for the pit, the edge of which she was now leaning over, giving him—and everyone else—a prime view of her ass, worn jeans stretched across it. Not that he was thinking about her ass in the middle of an emergency or anything. She was talking to Monty, telling him that everything was going to be fine.

“We didn’t do it on purpose, I swear,” Jasper was saying. “We were just playing a game of truth or dare and Monty had to go out here to retrieve something he left earlier today and suddenly we heard him yelling and—“

“The wall collapsed and he fell into the pit,” Raven finished. He noticed that she was standing a good distance back before she continued.  “And if you all know what’s good for you you’ll stop tramping around the unstable ground nearby.”

Everyone backed away except for Bellamy, who was watching Clarke, praying that she didn't tumble in there too. 

She sat upright and looked around until she found him, their eyes locking.

“We have to get him out of here," she said. "I think his ankle is broken.”

Shit. Shit shit _shit_. They'd dealt with a lot of chaos over the course of the summer, but this situation was next level.

Everyone was looking at him, waiting for him to give them some indication of what to do. 

So he did. “Jasper, Raven, I need you to go get the ropes and harnesses from the caving gear and bring it back here ASAP.”

Once they'd been successfully dispatched, he turned back to Clarke, who was now back on her feet with a determined look on her face. 

"You look like you have a plan," he said, and he was thankful that she did, because he hadn’t really thought much beyond getting the ropes and the harnesses. 

She stuck her hand out. 

“Lower me down?” she said, her eyes conveying both a question and a challenge.

"Down there?" He looked down at Monty and back up at Clarke. "Hell no. Then we’ll have two people stuck in pit C-74 and we’re doubly fucked.”

Clarke sighed in exasperation.

“How else do you propose we get him out? He’s in pain, he’s scared. Once they get the gear, he won’t be able to put on the harness and clip himself in. He needs help, and I’ll fit down there better than you.”

His jaw clenched. He didn't want to risk her safety, but she was right. He stared at her for a long moment, making sure she knew how much he didn’t like this plan, but eventually he reached out and took her hand.

She nodded and headed for the edge, looking down at Monty to tell him she was coming, and then back at Bellamy.

“Slowly, okay?” she said, hair blowing in the evening breeze, eyes steady.

He couldn’t believe how fearless she was, ready to drop into a deep hole in the ground in the dark. He knew Clarke was brave, but this was outright ballsy. He was insanely nervous about the entire thing.

Luckily, he didn’t have much time to ponder this. Clarke was ready to be lowered down, so he braced himself to take her weight, his fingers holding her forearm firmly. She was careful as she went down, making use of a wooden frame he’d put in place earlier that summer to ease her descent.

When she was as low as he could get her, she called up and told him to let go.

He didn’t want to, but he knew he had to.

“Are you sure?”

“It’s just a few more feet,” she said. “I’ve got it.”

He trusted her, so he unclenched his fingers and let go, holding his breath until he heard her feet hit the ground and she said, “Okay! I’m good!”

His heart rate didn’t settle back down to normal for a long time.

 

**

 

It went surprisingly well from there. Clarke managed to get Monty into a harness and Bellamy hauled them both out of the pit with the help of the others. Monty’s ankle was indeed broken—Clarke’s mom was a doctor, apparently, and Clarke seemed to know what she was talking about when it came to injuries. So they loaded Monty into the camp truck and headed for the hospital in the nearest sizeable town, over an hour away.

The moon was out in full, which was what had caused this whole fiasco in the first place. Bellamy drove and Clarke took the passenger seat, gazing out the window as they rode in companionable silence. Bellamy’s eyes kept drifting over to her, and he had to remind himself to watch the road. She’d surprised him yet again tonight, throwing him off their normal course.

“You did good tonight, Clarke,” he said eventually.

She looked over at him, a thoughtful look on her face. After a few beats she said, “We do what we have to do, to keep everyone in one piece. There are a lot of things that can go wrong on an arch dig.”

He was consistently amazed by Clarke’s ability to keep it together in the face of everything they dealt with. Running an archaeological excavation was a lot of work, a lot of managing of personalities and keeping everyone productive and everything running smoothly. A lot of things went wrong every day, and Bellamy often felt like he could barely maintain control over all of it. But somehow Clarke managed to make it all seem doable, like it was completely within their capabilities.  

He nodded his head in agreement.

She made him believe that they could handle anything. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this before watching this week's episode... eventually we'll get our Bellarke reunion, right? ;)


	11. June 2015, part 3

## June 2015, part 3

 

It’s hot as hell in late June, and there’s no real way to escape it. Bellamy has taken to spending his evenings out and about walking the camp and the site because being inside the lab or the cabin is too stifling until late, when the cooler evening air has finally filtrated its way in.

It also minimizes the amount of time he has to spend in his cabin with Clarke so close by. They’ve gone back to avoiding each other after submitting their grant application, and he supposes the summer will continue in the same fashion until they get to the end. There's nothing to indicate otherwise.

He’s walking back toward his cabin late one night—it’s finally cool enough, and he’s finally tired enough—when he hears Clarke’s voice drift out of her cabin door into the clearing.

“…murdered…” is the word he thinks he hears, but he’s still too far away to really tell, so he goes closer.

There’s a pause. A tinny, muffled voice comes from some kind of device, and then he hears Clarke’s voice again.

"Let me get this straight," she is saying, and her voice carries a tone that he’s never heard before. "You want me to speak at some med school wine and cheese party about my dead ex-boyfriend on the anniversary of the day he was murdered by a drunk driver?"

Fuck. Well. That explains… a lot. Or does it?

The tinny voice chirps again and then Clarke is shouting.

"Yes! Yes, mom, I do! Don’t even start with the ‘manslaughter’ thing. I don’t care how much money got paid out in the settlement, that drunk piece of shit  _murdered_  Wells!”

The pain in her voice has him on the porch in an instant.

“Clarke?” he says, leaning his head inside her door. “Is everything alright?”

Clarke turns to look at him and she is like he’s never seen her. Cheeks flushed from emotion, eyes glinting with tears, the purple cotton dress she always wears when it’s hot slightly crooked. She looks dishevelled and sad, and his heart splits at the sight. 

“Who is that?” the tinny voice calls from the computer. He can see now that it is a woman, talking through FaceTime or Skype.

Clarke breaks eye contact with him and turns back to the computer. “It’s Bellamy Blake, the other professor who runs the field site with me.”

“Oh,” the woman says. Her mother, he thinks.

Clarke’s shoulders slump and she looks at the computer with exhaustion. “Mom, can we finish this conversation later please?”

“Sure, honey. That’s probably a good idea. I guess it’s night time in France, so, have a good night.”

He watches as Clarke leans over and clicks the red button to end the call, and he can’t help but notice that neither of them said anything along the lines of “I love you.” The solitary world of Clarke Griffin becomes slightly clearer to him in that moment.

She turns to him, rubbing at her cheeks as if to swipe away the tears that haven’t fallen yet and tugging at her crooked dress. There’s no way to hide it—she’s kind of a mess. 

He wants to help her, but an upset Clarke is like a wounded animal—she won’t accept comfort easily, and he will need to tread carefully.

“Are you okay?” he asks finally.

Clarke shrugs and her face contorts for a moment as if the tears are going to come after all, but then she schools her features back under control.

“Just a casual Skype fight with my mother about my dead ex-boyfriend,” she says with a shrug. “I’ll be fine.”

The easier option, in this moment, would be to say “Okay” and leave her to deal with her problems on her own, an option they both would have taken in the past. But there’s something about Clarke right now, something about what he’s overheard, that makes him want to stay.

The words are tumbling out of his mouth before he can think too hard about it.

“Do you want some wine?”

“What?” Clarke laughs, and it’s a choking laugh that isn’t very funny but he’s happy she’s laughing and not crying.

What was initially a ridiculous suggestion starts to make sense. “Lincoln and Octavia brought a case of pinot gris back from his family’s vineyard and stashed a few bottles in my mini fridge. White wine isn’t exactly my thing, but given that it’s hot as hell out and you seem like you could use a drink, I’ll make an exception.”

Clarke thinks it over for a moment and he half expects her to tell him to go fuck himself, but she doesn't.

“That would be… great, actually,” she says.

Well then. 

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll be right back.”

He walks over to his cabin to grab the wine and scrambles around to find something to drink it out of, settling on two chipped mugs from the mess hall. He changes quickly too, getting out of his work clothes finally and into comfortable shorts and a t-shirt.

Clarke is standing on her porch when he walks back outside. When she sees him she sits down, motioning for him to join her. 

“Nice mugs," she says. "Are those from the mess hall?” 

He uncorks the bottle with a wine key and pours them both a glass, laughing at her calling him out on the mugs.

“I have a bad habit of carrying my coffee back to my cabin in the mornings before I head over to the dig. Don’t worry, I washed them out first.”

Clarke raises her mug to her lips and he watches her as she takes a sip, the column of her throat a soft white in the moonlight.

“This is delicious,” she says after she swallows.

He feels relief as he watches some of the tension fade from her face, neck, and shoulders and then takes a sip from his own mug.

“It really is," he agrees. Damn Lincoln and his family's magical grapes. "Don’t tell anyone I said that,” he jokes.

“We’re in France, Bellamy," Clarke says, rolling her eyes at him. "Nobody here associates white wine with emasculation. Your reputation is safe, don’t worry.”

“Good,” he replies, happy to see her smile as she teases him. 

The both fall silent then, drinking the cool wine as Clarke gets lost in thought. The lights from the cabin highlight her profile and he thinks that this is one of the most beautiful versions of Clarke, the way she is when she's deep inside her mind. He doesn't stare too obviously because, well, that wouldn't be any good at all, but his memory itches to inscribe her as she is right now, to capture this particular moment.

She takes a deep breath eventually and turns to him.  

“So," she asks, "how much did you overhear?”

He meets her gaze and knows this isn't a time for bullshit, so he's straight with her.

“I caught something about med school, murder, and a dead ex-boyfriend. Are your conversations with your mother always so upbeat?”

Clarke laughs her low chuckle, but there's an edge to it. 

"My mother and I have a complicated relationship. She’s the dean of the very prestigious medical school in the town where I grew up, and she’s always been disappointed that I didn’t follow in her footsteps. So any conversation we have that involves med school is automatically going to be a shit show.”  

Bellamy sits up, his interest piqued. This is more than he's ever heard Clarke talk about her family in all the years they've known each other. He knows her mother is a successful physician and her father is dead, and that's about it.

“She wanted you to be a doctor,” he says when she pauses, and he pictures a younger Clarke in his mind.

“She wanted me to be a medical doctor," she clarified. "Nevermind that I  _am_  a doctor, and my knowledge of human anatomy is just as good as hers, because I’m the wrong kind of doctor. A Ph.D. isn’t good enough for her. The bodies I work with are too dead and old.”

He can hear the frustration in her voice. Clarke works so hard, and she is incredibly successful in his eyes, so it baffles him that that couldn't be enough for anyone, let alone her mother. 

“She doesn’t get it," he says, shaking his head.

Clarke unfolds her legs from where she had them tucked under her, rubbing her hands on the curves of her calves before sitting up straight. 

“No, she doesn't," she says,“but I’m fine with that. I’ve worked my ass off to be the best at what I do, and even if she isn’t satisfied, I seem to impress her snobby friends. So she still wants to parade me around in front of her cronies when she can, which is what the call was about.”

That's Clarke, tough and proud and so goddamn confident in the face of doubt. And sharp in her abilities to read through other people's bullshit. He raises the bottle of wine to offer her another glass, which she gladly accepts.

She takes a drink before she continues, looking squarely at him.

“You’ve made enough snide comments in the past about my family that I don’t need to explain to you the kind of wealthy circles my mother runs in."

Her words cause his chest to tighten, because she's right and he feels like shit about it. For years he resented Clarke’s privilege, felt it was unfair that she had had advantages in life that he hadn't. Their fights—especially in the early years—had a way of almost always devolving back to that point. But all he can think of now is how much pain he has caused her because of the chip on his shoulder. He feels like garbage, and can only look out into the clearing and nod. 

Clarke keeps going.

“My family has always been close with another family, the Jahas. My mom’s side of the family has serious money, I won’t pretend otherwise. But what the Jahas have makes that money look like peanuts. Money like that turns most people who have it into monsters, but the Jahas… they’re good people. They give most of it away through their foundation.”

She pauses to drink more wine, and looks fierce, determined to tell this story. He’s afraid to speak, or even move, really, for fear that if he interrupts her she’ll close up again like she always seems to do with him.

“Their son Wells died five years ago. He was hit by a drunk driver when he was walking back to his apartment from the library one night. He was a student at the medical school. He was… we were…”

She pauses and swallows as she holds back the wave of emotion threatening to spill forward.

“We grew up together. We were best friends from infancy, practically. But things changed when we got older and we—we had just started dating that summer. He was in med school and I was in grad school and we were just… ready to be together, I guess.”

She tilts her head back to finish her wine.

“But he died,” she says when she's done, setting her mug on the porch with a clunk. “And now they’re naming a building after him, and they want me to show up in a nice dress and pearls and give a speech. And they can go fuck themselves.”

His heart breaks for her, for the loss she has experienced and for the fact that she is so alone in it. She looks at him now, waiting for his reaction, and he knows how hard it is for her to put this much of herself out there. He is overwhelmed by the need to pull her to him so she can just let go and cry and be held by someone--by him--telling her it will be okay. But he doesn't move. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice low. “I didn’t know.”

Clarke reaches for the bottle where it sits on the steps between them and pours herself more wine.  

“It’s not exactly something I talk I about. With anyone. Ever,” she says. “But you walked in on my murder rant, so I at least owe you an explanation.”

He takes the bottle for his own refill, shaking his head slightly. “You don’t owe me anything, Clarke. But... thank you for telling me. I know it’s not easy to talk about that kind of thing.”

It wasn’t. He knows this from his own life experience. And he knows it is even more so for Clarke, because she seems so determined to bottle everything like this up inside.

“It’s impossible,” she says. “I thought I had it all figured out, after my dad died, but it turns out losing someone you love isn’t like riding a bike. It’s not something you can be prepared for or remember how to do. It just guts you every time.”

It’s so true, so fucking sad and tragic and true, and he feels his own grief echoing hers. He breathes in and thinks of his mother, of the spring when she got sick. Of the end. Of the jagged pieces of himself and Octavia that remained in the wake.

He lets his breath out slowly before speaking. “Octavia has probably told you this, but we lost our mom. I was in college, Octavia was still a kid. Every loss, it’s different. So I’m not trying to say I know exactly what you’re feeling right now, Clarke, because I don’t. At all. But that feeling of being gutted, when you lose someone you love… I know what you mean.”

 Clarke watches him, studies him, and her gaze is almost like a physical touch.

“Judith Butler had a point, I guess,” she says eventually.

His mouth twitches up in surprise. “You’re bringing Judith Butler into this?”

“Come on, you have a Ph.D. in anthropology, I’m sure you had to read  _Undoing Gender_  at some point. You know that line she has, about humans and grief…”

He had read it.

“’Let's face it. We're undone by each other. And if we're not, we're missing something,’” he quotes, looking down into his wine to hide his slight embarrassment.

Clarke’s face lights up. “Exactly! Wow, you just quoted Judith Butler, verbatim.”

“It’s like the wine. Don’t tell anyone. We archaeologists aren’t supposed to admit we drink white wine or pay attention in theory class,” he says, smiling now that she is smiling, amazed at how fast the human heart can swing from anguish to elation because of a facial expression.  

She turns back to look at the sky.

“We are undone by each other,” she says slowly, as if testing out each word. “Isn’t that the truth.” She sighs, resting her elbows on her knees. “I always get to the point where I think I have everything all sorted out and arranged in just the right way so I can deal, so I can pack all the tragedy away and be a functioning adult. And my mother says three words over goddamn Skype, of all things, and I lose it.”

Her eyes are blazing and he can see her frustration.

“You’re human,” he says as he leans back.

They fall silent again for a while, and he thinks about how ridiculous it is that they can dedicate their lives to studying the human condition and still be so completely lost in the face of grief. And love.

He thinks about things he’s held inside, too. “I’ve been a scientist my whole life. We’re talking hardcore science nerd from preschool onward. Just ask O. So I’ve always been too much of a pragmatist to believe in angels or the ‘afterlife,’ things like that.”

She turns to him, her face more open than he’s ever seen it, and nods.

He holds her gaze for a moment before turning back to the sky. “But there’s always been a part of me that wonders if, somewhere out there in the universe, there’s still a piece of her. Of the people we’ve lost.”

Clarke follows his line of sight and studies the stars for a moment. “Me too,” she says quietly.

They finish their wine quietly after that and it’s comfortable, somehow, to just sit and let the heaviness of everything settle.

After a while Clarke yawns and sits up, handing him her mug.

“Good night,” she says as her hand falls back to her side, slowly rising from the porch step.

He takes the mug, his gaze flitting to their hands before going back to her face. “Good night,” he replies.

He walks back to his cabin and rinses out the mugs before flicking off the lights. He lies down and closes his eyes and breathes in and out, his heart tender where he doesn’t want it to be.

It takes him a while to fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been looking forward to writing this one since I started these companion pieces. I think these characters' explorations of grief are so important, because they're constantly dealing with loss in the show. It's one of the human aspects that I love so much. 
> 
> Here's the full Judith Butler quote, in case you didn't catch it in the original story: "Let's face it. We're undone by each other. And if we're not, we're missing something. If this seems so clearly the case with grief, it is only because it was already the case with desire. One does not always stay intact. It may be that one wants to, or does, but it may also be that despite one's best efforts, one is undone, in the face of the other, by the touch, by the scent, by the feel, by the prospect of the touch, by the memory of the feel. And so when we speak about my sexuality or my gender, as we do (and as we must), we mean something complicated by it. Neither of these is precisely a possession, but both are to be understood as modes of being dispossessed, ways of being for another, or, indeed, by virtue of another."


	12. June 2015, part 4

## June 2015, part 4

Things change a bit after that night. He catches himself looking at her more, for one thing. For the first part of the summer, he’d been strict with himself about acting like he could care less, stopping himself from doing things like stare at her across the field site or the mess hall before he even started. But now he’s not as careful, and his head tells him constantly that he’s being an idiot, that this is dangerous territory, that he needs to stop and step away and reevaluate. But a part of him feels like he is finally getting to know parts of Clarke that he's never seen in all the years of being held at arms length, and this is throwing most of his usual caution to the wind.

He’s thinking about Clarke one day in late June—he’s just found one of her hair ties on his side of the lab and is holding it in his palm—when he hears a car pull up outside the farmhouse.

They aren’t expecting any deliveries today, so he and Jasper go out to invest. A man is in dark, expensive jeans and a crisp t-shirt is unfolding himself from the car. His hair falls to his shoulders and he wears dark sunglasses and Bellamy thinks he looks like—wait, no, he _is_ that moron from that History Channel show.

What the fuck?

“Oh. My. God.” Jasper whispers.

The moron strides over to them. “Hi there. I’m looking for Dr. Clarke Griffin?”

Bellamy gives him the coldest look he can muster. “She’s out at the site right now.”

“Oh,” the moron says. “Are you the site manager? Can you tell her that Finn Collins is here to see her?”

“I’m Dr. Bellamy Blake, and I run this place. With Dr. Griffin.”

Collins’ eyebrows go up but he doesn’t apologize for his mistake.

“I’ll uh, do you want me to get her?” Jasper asks.

Bellamy just grunts and off Jasper goes.

“Well, Dr. Blake,” Collins says. “I’m glad to run into you, too.”

He sticks his hand out then, and Bellamy does nothing for just long enough to make the man sweat before reaching out for a shake. He’s not a total dick.

“Clarke and I go way back,” Collins continues.

Something surges in Bellamy’s mind. It’s a sting of jealousy at the thought of Clarke—private, cautious-with-her-feelings Clarke—going way back with _anyone_. He's let himself get comfortable with the assumption that she doesn't have a significant other—and Octavia has confirmed this—but he realizes now that he actually has no idea what Clarke gets up to, dating-wise, when she’s not at the field site. 

Bellamy gives Collins his best _back the fuck off glare_ before dropping his hand.

Collins flips his hair. “I’ve been meaning to check this place out for years,” he says. “And now that you’ve found those new cave paintings… well.”

“Well what?” Bellamy growls.

Finn looks at him like he’s slow. “Well, it’s an ideal location to film an episode of my show.”

“Your show,” Bellamy says.

“My show on the History Channel? We travel the world exploring archaeologic—"

“I know what your show is,” Bellamy cuts him off. “You’re not filming anything here."

Collins looks taken aback. “But it’s perfect. You have to see that. You have the connection to well-known sites like Lascaux that viewers will recognize, but this is new and fresh. People will feel like they’re getting to see cutting edge new findings right alongside you. It’s perfect for television.”

Bellamy grinds his teeth. “No. No way in hell are you bringing your cameras and your bullshit in here.”

Collins stiffens. “What I do is not _bullshit_ , Dr. Blake. Now why don’t we wait and see what Clarke has to say?”

Bellamy’s temper rises, not least because of the way Collins says her name. “ _Dr._ Griffin will agree with me. Don’t go assuming this is going to be an easy sell to her. She’s been working on this site for the better part of decade and she’s not keen on outsiders barging their way in.”

He knows that better than anyone.

Collins stares at him, an increasingly aggressive look on his face, trying to be intimidating. Bellamy stands tall, arms across his chest, daring Collins to challenge him again.

They seem like they’re digging in to stand there indefinitely when a flash of blonde hair catches Bellamy’s attention, and then Clarke is rushing towards them, a panicked look on her face.

Collins smirks before turning to her. “Dr. Griffin, hi,” he says smoothly, making his way toward her. “It’s been years. I feel like we’ve been emailing for so long, it’s nice to finally see you in person again.”

Clarke is looking at Bellamy like she’s frantic to figure out what’s going on, and he wants to ask her some things too, because this whole “we go way back” thing isn’t sitting well with him.

She tears her gaze from his when Collins demands her full attention.

“Your colleague here seems to think I’m stopping by uninvited,” he’s saying, flipping his hair again. “But I told him you and I had arranged this ages ago.”

Clarke’s mix of surprise, bafflement, and panic to get everything under control plays across her face as she looks at the tv star, but she ends with a charming smile. Bellamy remembers then that she has been groomed to show poise in the face of things like this.

“I guess I didn’t realize exactly when you’d be coming so I may have, uh, neglected to mention it to Dr. Blake,” she says, and her eyes flit back to Bellamy for a moment. He can read two things in them: _I’m sorry_ and _I’ve got this._

Bellamy doesn’t think he can stomach watching Collins hit on Clarke, which is exactly the direction in which things are heading, so he mumbles something and then gets the hell out of there.

He only breaks a few things over the course of the day.

 

**

 

Collins spends the day touring the site with Clarke and the others. He’s a huge hit with everyone (Bellamy’s opinion doesn’t count. According to Octavia, he “doesn’t know good tv when he sees it.”). When they invite Collins to stay for dinner, people are practically tripping over each other to get a seat at the same table as him.

The only other person who doesn’t seem to care is Lincoln, who shares a table with Bellamy at supper.

“You watch his stuff?” Lincoln asks.

“I’ve seen enough to know it’s crap,” he responds.

Lincoln chuckles. “I said this to Octavia, but she disagrees.”

Bellamy shakes his head. “She’s not known for her highbrow taste in entertainment.”

Lincoln shrugs. “His hair is like a woman’s. I’m not worried.”

Bellamy can’t help but grin at that comment.

He gets up to clear his tray and surveys the room, the occupants of which have largely gravitated into a circle around the table where Collins is sitting.   

Clarke extracts herself from the group, managing to get her tray free, and heads towards the back where he’s standing. She looks at him wearily as she approaches to deposit her tray and comes to stand beside him after she's done.

“I can’t believe they buy into his bullshit,” he says to her. “Finn Collins is a complete moron.”

Clarke observes the scene for a moment. “He sells  _a lot_  of books,” she says with a shrug.

“That doesn’t mean he’s not a moron. You’ve read his stuff, it’s garbage.” Now that they’re finally alone, he can ask her what he’s been wondering all day. “So why is he here, Clarke?”

She sighs. “He asked a while ago if he could come visit L’Arche sometime, and I said sure, just like I say to everyone who wants to visit.”

That’s not what Bellamy means. “He wants to bring a film crew in here.”

“What?” she asks, jerking her head around in surprise.

Ah. So Pretty Boy was too scared to reveal his true motives.

“He didn’t tell you?” Bellamy asks. “He wants to bring a film crew into the new cavern and shoot the cave paintings for his stupid History Channel show. Like hell I’m going to let some tv jerkoff profit off of this site.”

Clarke’s face clouds over. “No. He can’t.”

“That’s what I told him before you walked up this morning.”

Clarke shakes her head, confused. “Why wouldn’t he have said something to me about it?”

It’s so obvious, he thinks, but clearly not to her. “Because he’s trying to sleep with you and he knows asking about filming the site will piss you off?”

The look on her face is a priceless mix of shock and embarrassment.  

“He does not want to sleep with me,” she insists.

“Of course he does,” Bellamy says with a laugh.  

“What makes you say that?” she asks, looking at him.

He looks right back at her and realizes she truly is clueless, not just some girl playing dumb about her appeal and fishing for compliments. And appealing she is, in her worn jeans and slim-fitting tank that he’s still not convinced is practical work attire. He can’t help but survey her quickly before he tells her what she apparently needs to hear.

“Because you’re Dr. Clarke Griffin and your work is brilliant. And you’re a babe. And he’s a straight guy with a pulse.”

Her eyes go wide then, and he’s actually amazed at the effect she’s letting him have on her. He supposes one part of her shutting everyone out is that she rarely ends up hearing anyone explain something like this to her.  

“Geez, Bellamy,” she says, and he can tell by the tone of her voice that she doesn’t believe him. “He doesn’t want to sleep with me. Him being here has nothing to do with me. He’s here for the site."

She’s wrong, but he won’t try to convince her otherwise.

"And we'll tell him no," she finishes. 

“Good,” he says.

"I should probably go back over there," she says reluctantly. "Just to make sure they don't end up here all night."

Bellamy nods and decides now is as good a time as any to get the hell away from all things Finn Collins-related.

He could use a nice, long, solitary walk around the site— _their_ site—so he goes and does just that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Finn. Poor, sweet Finn. He's a bit OOC here, but I find him a tricky character to write. I didn't want to use him as one of Clarke's exes, but still wanted to include him somehow, so this is what ended up happening. I like making Bellamy jealous ;)


	13. June 2014

## June 2014

That summer was different. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly why, at first, but he knew things were just... different than before. It was subtle. They'd ended the previous summer on a positive note, although they weren't actually friends or anything. He'd moved to Vancouver and they'd made no move to socialize or even see one another for professional reasons, which wasn't a surprise. He got his first full year of teaching under his belt, and his life was settling into a kind of adulthood that had always seemed elusive to him. Octavia was back, this time as Clarke’s student, and she was moving to Vancouver after the season for her first semester of grad school in the fall. He was happy, he realized. For the most part.

He and Clarke still argued. Constantly. But they were in their second summer now of being in charge and things felt more in control. Or, if not exactly in control, they were better at anticipating what could go wrong. And besides, arguing had become a kind of problem-solving tactic for them at this point.

It was in the middle of one of these arguments, when Clarke was telling him very loudly at the mouth of the caves exactly where he could shove the surveying prism he was holding and all he could do was look at her infuriating mouth, that he realized what was different about that summer.

He liked her. Like, _liked_ her, liked her. As in, had a massive, unrequited crush on her that was the worst idea in the history of the universe, because had he been paying _any attention at all_ for the last few years?

She finished yelling, gave him the finger, and disappeared inside the cave.

He just stared after her, floored by his realization, the forgotten prism dangling from his hand. It wasn’t completely out of nowhere, this crush. He’d been physically drawn to her since the first day she stormed out of the farmhouse and told him she was going to kill him if he screwed up. He’d even had a few fantasies in his head with her in the starring role, but he’d always written them off as the product of some perverse part of his mind that was meant to torture him. It was a shock, still, regardless. Now that he really thought about it, he knew that more and more over the last summer he had started watching her, started noticing subtle things about her, started paying attention in ways he hadn't before. And the more his brain piled it all together, the more he realized how well and truly fucked he was.

He had a crush on Clarke Griffin, and, knowing how Clarke Griffin felt about him in return, it was probably going to ruin his life.

 

**

 

Bellamy’s life did indeed became rather difficult after this discovery. Not only was he constantly reminded of how close she was—weaving around the site and the lab during the day, falling asleep fifteen feet away at night—and dealing with the subsequent, very annoying physical responses of his attraction to her, he was also constantly yelling at himself profusely for being such a fucking idiot.

Falling for Clarke was the worst idea he’d ever had, he was sure of it. But he also knew that it wasn’t so much an idea as something underneath his skin, a wave, a tangled ball of feelings and chemistry that he had no chance of avoiding. To make things worse, after he admitted to himself what was going on, countless moments from the last few years slid into completely new focus, and he was fucking terrified by the extent to which this discovery might actually go. Every touch, every screaming match replayed in his mind, and it was daunting. As much as he wanted it to be, this wasn’t passing sexual temptation. This was something more.

So he buried it at all. Deep. He did not need Octavia or someone else catching onto this. And maybe, just maybe, if he buried it deep enough, it would disappear. It was hard, though, because they had to spend a lot of time together, and that summer it was happening even more than usual because they had some major decisions to make about the site.

There was another cavern, closed off from the main one they’d been working in for years, and it was so close to being accessible, but they had to make the call on exactly how to get into it. Bellamy knew they needed to blast through the side wall. There was no other way that they could get to it without wasting their entire summer digging.

Naturally, Clarke disagreed.

They fought about it off and on for a week until the day before the decision-making hour arrived and they had to make the call for real. There was a build up all day, meetings with geologists and cave experts to discuss their options, and after the meetings ended they launched into one of their most involved arguments so far that summer.

By 9PM, they’d been fighting about it for hours. The clock was ticking, and they needed to decide what they were going to do so they could get the necessary equipment and manpower lined up, but Clarke was refusing to see reason and it was driving him crazy.

That evening’s battleground was the lab, where they’d been holed up since their meetings, so absorbed in their problem-solving that they’d completely forgotten about dinner and the outside world until Raven showed up with two covered plates and a dramatic roll of her eyes.

They paused to eat, a moment’s respite, and then Clarke shoved the last bite in her mouth, slammed her plate on the lab bench, and turned back to him.  

“Continuing the course along the main tunnel is the only way to go,” she declared, and he couldn’t believe she was _still_ clinging to this idea. All day he'd watched her fight for it, and all day he'd fought right back. He was tired of fighting. 

He finished his own supper and stood, striding over to where she sat, pointing to the map of the caverns laid out beside her, and restating the argument he'd been making all day in a few punchy, _lets get this over with_ sentences. “We know from our geologists that the chamber we’re trying to get to is on the other side of that wall. We need to take advantage of the weak point we know is there to see if we can get through. Otherwise we’ll spend the rest of the summer digging our way to nowhere.”

She stood too, doing that thing where she tried to make herself taller when he loomed over her, which was ridiculous, and something he would hate if he didn't also find it so annoyingly endearing. He ignored the jolt in his stomach that always slammed into him when she was in close proximity. It warred with his frustration and anger, and he was an all-around hot mess.

“We can’t risk damaging the wall,” she said. “We don’t know what’s on the other side. If we try to get through we could destroy any number of things. A burial, one of your precious cave paintings… you name it, you know it’s stupid to risk it.”

She was rising onto her toes for an extra inch of height, trying to drill him with her eyes, and he wondered if she had any clue what she did to him when she thought she was being intimidating. For years he actually had been intimidated by her, but now he just wanted to grab her and channel all that energy into something else entirely. It made fighting with her so much more difficult.

He leaned in closer, meeting her gaze. “If we don’t risk it—if we can’t show that this cave system goes deeper, our grant money is  _gone_ , Clarke. This place will shut down.”

Her eyes took on a tragic cast. “We can’t just blast through that wall, Bellamy!” she said, her voice breaking just enough that he knew he was getting close to victory, but suddenly that was the last thing from his mind, because her mouth, _goddamit_ , he couldn’t stop looking at her mouth.

“We wouldn’t be ‘blasting through,' we’d be carefully excavating—“

“You think you can go in there with a sledgehammer and just—“

These sentences came out at the same time, and she made a face that finally broke him. He was done with this conversation. He leaned in and did what he’d been thinking about doing for weeks—well, for much longer, if he was really, truly honest with himself—and shut her up with his mouth. He caught her lips with his, absorbing all of the tension of the argument in the space between them, and finally, fucking _finally_ , he was kissing Clarke Griffin, and it was glorious.

She froze at first and then he felt her soften slightly, a melting into him that he helped by raising his hands to cradle her face. He waited for her to flip out but instead her mouth parted under his and he ran his tongue along her lower lip, and it was bad. So terribly, horribly bad, because now he knew what she tasted like, what this really felt like, and he was only going to want more of it. 

He growled in satisfaction—because _finally_ —and his body wanted to envelop hers, but she stiffened all of a sudden, jogged back to reality, and pushed him away with her hands on his chest.  

They stared at each other in shock, catching their breath. His lips burned from the taste and the feel of her, and he was torn between relief that he finally just _did_ it and panic because she looked  _pissed_.

Clarke’s eyes were wide, and she breathed in and out as if trying to get her bearings. This was new territory. There was no automatic response to this.

“What the hell was that?” she asked finally, her voice rough with something, he wasn't sure what, but it didn't bode well for him.

He had to shake his head to clear it and fight to find his voice again. “Clarke,” he began, unsure of where to go next, but if she would just listen, maybe he could dig himself out of this hole.

Her eyes remained wide, and he would have given anything to know what she was thinking in that moment, but that wasn’t going to happen. Nobody had that privilege. He could read her well enough, though, to recognize the moment the panic really set in for her, when her head began to shake in a silent _no._

She was up and moving and pushing past him before he could do anything about.

“Clarke, wait,” he called after her, but she was gone.

God. _Dammit_.

There was no telling where this would go. But if he had to put money on it, he would guess that the odds were not in his favor. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so excited to finally be at these scenes. And so excited to be working on them as the season draws to a close. I don't know how I'd survive without this sandbox to play in. xoxo, it's all feelings and smut from here on out ;)


	14. July 2015

## July 2015

July creeps up on him. Life has been busy that summer, and he’s been throwing himself into everything 110%. He does it because he loves L’Arche, and he loves his work, but he also does it because he’s discovered that if he is constantly doing something, he has no time to ponder his real problem.

Which is Exhibit C: blonde tempest who has somehow stormed through and demolished all of his resolutions to not give a shit anymore, leaving him surrounded by the ruins of his carefully constructed _giving Clarke what she wants_ house while she continues to hold him at arm’s length because she’s stubborn as hell.

It’s pathetic and he knows it. Last summer he’d been able to hide it well enough that by the time he actually did work up the nerve to kiss her she was completely shocked by it, and nobody else had a clue. This summer it’s different. His crew members have been keeping their mouths shut—he snapped at them enough early on that they got the point. Octavia, however, is a different story. Not only can she read him like a book; she also doesn’t listen when he tells her not to talk about something.

She catches him at dinner one night watching Clarke across the mess hall and she shakes her head. “You poor sucker,” she says. “You’ve got it _bad_.”

Bellamy gives her a moody glare. “Don’t even,” he says.

Octavia forks up a bite of salad and chews thoughtfully. “What is up with you lately anyway?” she asks.

“Nothing,” he replies.

“You’re working like, a million hours a day, and whenever you’re not working, you’re staring at Clarke with a big dumb look on your face, and it’s weirding me out,” she says as she attacks the rest of her salad. “You’re usually so much grumpier and all ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’ but now you’re barely even trying to hide your mooney expressions. What is going on?”

“Nothing is going on,” he says wearily as he murders a cherry tomato with his fork.

Octavia raises her eyebrow skeptically. “I just laid out very clearly why that is not true.”

Bellamy just shakes his head. He’s good at ignoring Octavia’s lines of inquiry when he wants to be.

“I’m serious, Bell,” she says. “You’re acting weird. Different. And so is Clarke. It’s like, I don’t know, something has changed, obviously, but you’re still barely talking to each other, so I have no idea what it could be. Even the students noticed that you guys are fighting less, so something is up and you can’t tell me otherwise.”

 _Nothing is up_ , he wants to say, but he’s pretty tired of all the bullshit. “You said it yourself, Octavia. Maybe we don’t have to fight all the time.”

“Yeah but… this is different.” Her voice grows thoughtful, serious. “Bellamy, what… are you…”

And then her eyes widen.

“Holy shit,” she continues. “You’re in love with her.”

He stares her down with a burning glare that tells her to _shut the fuck up immediately_ but of course she just bursts into a wide grin.

“I can’t believe this. You’re in love with her. And not in, like, a ‘me teasing you about being in love with her’ kind of way. You’re _actually_ in love with her and you’re being so fucking obvious about it. Holy shit!”

“You’re wrong,” he says.

She tames her smile a bit. “Okay, there’s the denial I’m used to. Geez, Bell. You have to do something about it.”

He gets up then, deciding now is the perfect time to clear his tray.

“Bellamy, come on,” she says.

“Goodnight, Octavia,” he says.

“Bellamy!”

He returns his tray with one hand and waves at her with the other.

She’s still grinning when he glances her way before he heads out the door. He shakes his head and sighs.

He’s fucked.

**

A few nights later, after another long day, he’s avoiding Octavia at dinner and looking around every once in a while hoping to catch a glimpse of Clarke. When she still hasn’t shown up by the time the kitchen begins to close up for the night, he starts to worry. Clarke only misses dinner when she’s really busy with something, and if something is that important, he usually knows about it, too.

He tells himself it’s stupid, that she has her own life and he doesn’t need to know where she is every second of the day, but that doesn’t stop him from worrying. He gets up to walk over and ask Octavia if she knows where Clarke is—he doesn’t care about the commentary this will inevitably inspire—and is passing by a backpack on the floor by a table when he hears the chirping of the radio and freezes.

"L'Arche station, this is Clarke Griffin. There's been a cave-in in the northwestern passageway off of cavern three. Do you read me?"

His blood runs cold and his heart jumps into his throat. He grabs the backpack and yanks it open, digging through the contents until he finds the radio. 

He pushes the button to talk. "Clarke?" he asks, a slight break in his voice that he doesn’t care to overanalyze.

"Bellamy?" her voice calls through the radio, and he can hear her fear over the line, ratcheting up his heart rate.

"Clarke, what happened?” he asks. “Where are you?”

 _And where the fuck is the person who’s supposed to be manning this radio?_  

"I’m in the northwestern passageway off of cavern three,” she says. “I was staking out a new spot to dig and there was a cave-in."

“Fuck,” he swears, and the kids at a nearby table look over at him. “Motherfucking _goddamit_. Are you okay?” 

There’s a pause, and Bellamy looks around for his team—he needs Lincoln and Octavia, Raven, Jasper, Monty… and he needs them now.  

"I'm fine,” Clarke replies, and he feels a tiny measure of relief. “But I’m stuck. The debris has blocked off the passageway."

"Is it completely blocked?" he asks.

Octavia has seen him standing with the radio and is rushing over to him with a look of alarm on her face.

“Bellamy, what’s going on?” she asks when she gets to him.

“There was a cave-in,” he says. “Clarke is stuck. Who the _fuck_ was supposed to be manning this radio? I found it chirping in some backpack.” 

Octavia’s face falls. “It was Steve’s turn,” she says, turning to one of the students who is just now realizing that his professor has ransacked his backpack and that there’s something going on.

Clarke’s voice comes back through the radio. "I can kind of hear the music playing on the other side, but I can't see anything. There's no light coming through. I think it's completely blocked off." 

"Do you have a light with you?" Bellamy asks.

"My headlamp," she replies

"Extra batteries?"

"Yes, for headlamp and radio. I've got my pack with me, with my tools, and a bit of food and water."

He wishes he were placated by the fact that she’s as prepared as she can be for a situation like this, but he only feels dread knifing through him. He channels his panic into problem-solving.

Lincoln has come over to join Octavia, who is explaining to him what’s going on.

“What can we do?” Lincoln asks.

“We need to round up a team and get over there to get her out. Can you do that?” he says.

Lincoln nods and heads off to get started.

Bellamy makes eye contact with Octavia while he talks to Clarke through the radio. "Listen, here's what we're going to do. Lincoln and I are getting a team together to come over and assess the damage and clear the debris. I don't know how long it's going to take because I haven't seen the cave-in yet, but Clarke?"

"Yeah?"

"I will get you out of there. I promise."

Octavia’s face softens and he knows she’s reading his expression and interpreting a thousand things from it.

"Thank you," Clarke replies.

“We’ll be there as soon as we can,” he says. “Just sit tight, and stay away from the unstable part.”

“Got it.”

“Bellamy,” Octavia says, but he’s already marching over to Steve.

“You,” he says coldly. “You were supposed to be manning the radio tonight.”

Steve’s face is white as a sheet. “I, uh, I had it with me, but I accidentally left it—“

“You do not accidentally leave this radio anywhere, _ever_ , when you are in charge of it, do you understand?”

His voice is rising and the rest of the mess hall is starting to pay attention.

“Y-yes, Dr. Blake. I’m sorry, I—“

“There are no acceptable excuses.” He looks around, sees that he has an audience, and decides now is as good a time as any to get everything under control on this end before they start the rescue mission.

“There’s been a cave-in in the northwestern corner of cavern three. Dr. Griffin is trapped inside. _This_ is why we have radios. This is why we follow safety protocol. Lincoln will be asking some of you to help us clear debris, so if he comes to you, do exactly what he says. I need the rest of you to stay close to camp tonight and be on call in case we need more help at the caves. Do you understand me?”

He is met with nods and looks of worry on everyone’s faces. 

He nods once back and then makes his exit, his sister at his side.

It’s time to save Clarke.

**

Lincoln gathers the team quickly and gets the safety gear ready to go. They have no idea what they’re walking into, so they have to be prepared for everything. Working on a site with a cave network means everyone has at least some safety training, but Bellamy knows there’s a very real chance that this situation could be beyond their abilities. He smashes that fear like a bug because he doesn’t have time to think that like right now.

“Clarke, do you read me?” he calls into the radio as he walks through the dark to the site with Octavia.

“Yes,” she responds.

“We’re on our way,” he says. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” she replies, and he can envision her forming those words. He wishes he knew if she was _actually_ fine, because she always said she was fine, even when she wasn’t.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

Octavia gives him a sympathetic look.

“I’m as good as I can be, trapped inside a cave,” Clarke says. “I guess it is a bit chilly in here.”

“I know, I wish I could—we’ll be there soon,” he replies, frustrated beyond belief that he can’t fix it all right _now_.

“I know,” Clarke replies.

Octavia reaches over to touch his arm. “She’s going to be okay.”

He walks in silence for a moment. “What if she’s not?”

“You can’t think like that, Bell,” Octavia says. “We know she’s fine now, and we’re going to clear everything and get her out, and she’s going to remain fine.”

He shakes his head. “She could have been hit by a rock and—“

He cuts himself off because Octavia is right. He can’t think like that. But the slideshow of “what if” horrors that’s been running through his mind since he first heard her voice over the radio has left its mark. He is gutted at the prospect of losing Clarke, and he knows that, if this works and they get her out, he is going to stop fucking around.

He makes the promise to himself then and there: when they get Clarke out, he’s going to stop thinking about kissing her—which he has been doing a lot of lately—and actually kiss her, because he _needs_ her. It’s stupid to pretend otherwise. In so many ways, he needs her, and he needs to get that shit sorted out. Life is too short, and if he continues on the path he’s been taking when it comes to her, he knows he’ll live to regret it.

He takes a breath and firms up his shoulders with new resolve. “Let’s just get to the caves and get this done.”

The lights are already blazing when they get there, the work stereo playing classic rock—Clarke’s favourite—into the night. They head for the northwestern corner and Bellamy’s heart sinks when he sees the pile of rubble blocking off the passageway where Clarke is stuck.

He strides up until he’s standing right in front of it, surveying the extent of the damage. It’s bad, he knows that much. Where the hell all the rubble came from is beyond him—they paid experts good money to assure them that this kind of thing wasn’t going to happen—but that’s neither here nor there because it’s already fallen.

He envisions Clarke trapped on the other side and the worry floods through him all over again.

He clicks on the radio. “Clarke, can you hear us?”

“I can hear some noise, but it’s really muffled,” she replies.

“Okay, we’ll stick with the radio for communication. We’re just getting a look at the fall, hang on a second.”

He walks around the base of the fall with Lincoln and Octavia. It’s a lot to move, and it will have to be done carefully, but it is doable.  

“Clarke, how much room do you have between the debris on your side and the back of the passageway?” he calls through the radio.

“About twenty feet,” she replies. “Why?”

“We’re not sure how the debris might fall as we try to pull it out. I want to make sure you don’t get hurt if anything falls inward. Can you stay towards the back?”

There’s a pause before she replies. “Yes, I’m back about fifteen feet.”

“Okay, stay put.”

They dig into the work. They get a system down fairly quickly where he and Lincoln move the bigger rocks from the less stable portions of the fall and the rest of the team transports the debris to the side, but they have to lever some rocks out and it takes a lot of patience.

Bellamy’s patience level is right around the minimum threshold needed to get shit done, and he knows that if he didn’t have a team to lead he would be in a much more frantic state of mind. Checking in frequently on the radio with Clarke helps, he finds, because he continues to know that she is okay, and she has a way of facing tense situations with an air of calmness that helps everyone else feel less desperate, even when there’s a wall of rubble between them.

He sinks all of his energy into getting her out, and it takes hours, but eventually they get enough cleared away that they can work safely from the top. He’s up there, levering a piece out, when it shifts to the side and a chink of blackness opens up. He peers into the passageway and can see the light of her headlamp bobbing down below. He feels a rush of relief and a real threat of tears pricking the back of his eyes.

“Clarke!” he shouts.

“Bellamy!” she shouts back.

He yanks on the lever until the rock moves further and then slides free, leaving an opening just big enough for Clarke to fit through. 

“Clarke,” he says again, reaching his hand into the opening. “Come on.”

She comes forward and he can start to make out her form in the light coming through from the main cavern, and he wants her safe in his arms _now_.

She scrambles up the pile of rocks, and the sound of her breathing as she gets closer is the best thing he’s ever heard, and then her arm is reaching up and he’s grabbing for her, his fingers locking around hers, and he never wants to let her go again.

“I’m going to pull you up and through,” he says. “Are you ready?”

“Yeah,” she replies, and he can hear the threat of tears in her voice, too.

He braces himself and pulls, and soon her shoulder and her other hand, and then her head are coming through. Her face is smudged with dirt, but when she smiles at him in relief as she tumbles the rest of the way through and into his arms, she’s the most beautiful sight he’s ever seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this one really got my heart racing, actually. I am by no means a cave expert and have no idea how to actually get out of this type of situation safely, but I like putting them in a dangerous situation because so much of that is what drives the show's plot. I don't know how they write all that intense action every week, but I'm glad they do. And now I can finally get to work on the next chapter, which I've been dying to write since I did it from Clarke's perspective the first time around. :D


	15. July 2014

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Monday! Let's start the week off with some smut, shall we? Warning: the following should probably not be read at your desk at work, unless you have a good excuse for blushing. I'm blushing after having written it. I feel a strong urge to tweet at Bob Morley and apologize for objectifying him like this, because if the poor man had any real idea... well, thanks for giving us the character, Bob, these are the consequences. And damn does this help my pre-finale frustration.

## July 2014

They avoided each other after the kiss. It was inevitable, he supposed, but it also wasn’t very practical because they had to see each other constantly to deal with the opening of the new cavern (which they were doing his way, thankfully). Every once in a while he caught her looking at him with an expression of intense puzzlement on her face, like he was a clue in the Sunday crossword, but that was it. Great. He was just another problem to be solved in her world.

The clearing of the access point to the cavern went well, and when they finally got inside, it was incredible. There was evidence of multiple burials as well as a large wall covered in paintings of what looked like the different stages of a hunt, and the scholar in him couldn’t wait to get started sampling the pigments and learning as much possible about the people who created such beauty, who captured the history of tens of thousands of years ago in their work.

He couldn’t spend too much time in the cavern that first day because he had some other work to finish and he wanted to re-read a few articles before really starting on the new paintings. The air around camp was festive, thanks to the new discovery, so he had to hide himself away in his cabin to get away from it all and focus.

He was so engrossed in his work that he didn’t hear Clarke coming and jumped slightly when she knocked.

“Hey,” she said softly.

It was a soft summer evening, not too hot, and she leaned against the doorjamb, her small, curvy frame outlined by the night beyond. Everything he’d been working on flew out of his head and he was immediately filled with the sensation of her, here, alone with him for the first time in days.

“Hey,” he responded, closing his computer. “What’s up?”

She didn’t move, or even say anything. She just stood there, her fingers tangled together, her mind spinning.

He stood up. “You can come in if you want, Clarke.”

She stayed where she was, her mind turning something over and over until she finally worked up the nerve to say it.

“You were right,” she said quietly.

 

That was not what he expected to hear from her, probably ever. He couldn’t help the smile that started to spread across his face. “What do you mean?” he asked.

She looked down at her hands and then back up at him. “I saw the new cavern. You were right, we needed to get in there, sooner rather than later. It’s… it’s incredible in there.”

He beamed. “It’s amazing, right? Did you see the paintings on the western wall?”

She nodded, and he expected her to say something snarky about them, like she always does when it comes to cave paintings. Instead, she said, “They’re beautiful.”

 _You’re beautiful_ he thought to himself, but that cheesy internal monologue wasn’t helpful here. They were talking about cave paintings. When in doubt, stick to business—this was his mantra when it came to the confusing world of Clarke.

“Jasper and Monty have already done a quick survey of the place,” he continued. “They think the northwestern corner has multiple burials, so you guys will have plenty of—“

He stopped talking when Clarke pushed off the doorjamb and walked across the cabin, and for a split second he thought about how the only other time he’d seen her walk like that was when she slapped the shit out of him two summers ago. And then he didn’t think at all, because she rose up onto her toes and kissed him with all the force of the blonde tempest that she was, and the only thing he could do was feel.

Her.

There.

Because she wanted to be.

He was frozen in shock, and then he wasn’t, because _thank God_ , Clarke Griffin was kissing him. He kissed her back, his arms wrapping around her tightly to pull her close and it was heaven to finally have her there, pressed up against him.

The kiss deepened. He caught her lower lip and did to it what he didn’t have time to do the last time, and then proceeded to taste as much of her as he could in a kiss. Her hands slid over his chest and left fire in their wake, and his own hands slid down her back to her waist before he reached and grabbed her ass, because he couldn’t resist now that it was finally within his reach after years of tempting him.

Clarke moaned and the way it tickled his spine reminded him that he needed to rein it in if he wasn’t going to ravish her right then and there on his desk (although he didn’t exactly hate that idea). They pulled back from each other and he saw that her eyes were clouded with lust— _fuck_ did it ever feel good to know he put it there. She was trying to force a scowl and the combined effect was so adorably hilarious that he couldn’t help but laugh. He pulled her closer so she wouldn’t escape, because he wasn’t finished with this yet.

“What are we doing?” she said, her voice rough with desire.

His hands were at her back and he couldn’t help but slide them underneath and graze her skin with his fingers as he bunched her shirt into his fist. “I have no idea.”

“We hate each other,” she said. 

“Do we?” he replied, because he didn’t believe it, had never believed it, really.

“You know what I mean,” she said, with her _agree with me_ face on.  

He didn’t know what she meant. He didn’t know anything anymore, clearly. All logic that had formerly ruled their relationship was gone, all bets were off.

“I don’t know left from right when it comes to you these days, Griffin.”

She made a confused face. “What—“

He was done with that conversation. He kissed her again fiercely, and was thrilled when she met him with her own ferocity, her hands in his hair as they devoured each other, years of tension dissolving around them as they finally gave in.

His hand slid higher up her back eventually and he pulled her hips into to his because he needed to be closer to her, like, yesterday. He tugged firmly until she was nestled right up against him and could feel exactly how much he wanted her, which he was nervous about revealing for the first time until he felt her rub against him and moan deeply as a shiver went through her body.

They broke apart and looked at each other again, lips damp and skin flushed, until Clarke looked away at the door.   

“Lock it,” she said, and he felt a rush of victory flood through his entire body. The bossiness in her voice went straight to his groin because _goddamn_ was it a turn-on when she was bossing him around for sex.

Sex. Fuck. This was happening. This was really happening. He was at the door almost immediately, locking it tight and checking to make sure, because this was not something he wanted to have interrupted. He couldn’t help the grin that took over his face because _this was happening_.

“Get that shit-eating grin off your face,” Clarke said as he walked back to where she was standing, hand on her hip.

It was funny, because the grin on her face was just as bad. “Only if you get the shit-eating grin off  _your_  face.”

She reached for him and pulled him back into a kiss and the talking was over.

He was fine with that.

His hands went back to her shirt and slid it up and over her head, her hands raised up to help him. She shook her hair free and Bellamy found himself staring down at her breasts, encased in a forest green bra that was both gorgeous and very much in his way. His hands slid over her and he thumbed at her tightening nipples beneath the fabric while his other fingers curled slightly into the cups.

He’d been waiting a long time to touch Clarke like this. He leaned down then and planted a kiss on the top of her left breast because it was so perfect and so _his_. She laughed and her fingers reached for his shirt, tugging it upwards as well, and he had to leave her breasts in order to get it off. As soon as he was free, he reached out and pushed her bra straps down her shoulders as she reached behind to undo the clasp, and when he finally saw her fully topless for the first time he had to close his eyes and thank whatever mysteries of the universe that he prayed to before pulling her into him again. He needed her skin on his, immediately.

They attacked each other’s pants next, and soon he was sucking in his breath as she palmed him through his boxer briefs. He slid his fingers into her underwear and palmed her ass before sliding the fabric down her legs. His hand found hers and she put her fingers over his and guided him to her wetness—Christ, she was already so wet—and moaned at the touch when he found her sweet spot.

He swallowed the rest of her moans with a kiss and guided her to the bed, where he lay her down with out removing his hand. When he did break the kiss, she was panting, and he slid her hands up above her head and looked down at her, worshipping her like this. He still couldn’t quite believe it was real.

“Last chance,” he said, because that nagging doubt was still there, that fear that she would jump up and run away, but it was short-lived.

“Fuck me now, Blake, or I’ll punch you in that ridiculous mouth of yours," she replied, and the switch flipped then, because _she was his_.

He reached for a condom from a box under his bed and rolled it on quickly, and she tugged at him because she was beyond ready for him, and he’d never been so turned on in his life.

He pushed into her slowly at first, but she was hot and wet and ready for him, and he was beyond ready for her, so he tilted her hips and slid up to the hilt into her until he was buried deep and his heart was pounding out the rhythm of the word _finally_ repeating in his head.

He looked down at her as her eyes opened, the expression on her face as she adjusted around him a complete revelation. She moved her hips and he began to thrust, and they found a rhythm, their eyes locked until hers fell shut again when she called out his name. It was perfection, their bodies approaching a release that had been building for far too long, and he could feel her winding tighter beneath him. She reached for his ass and pulled him deeper into her still, and suddenly she was falling apart beneath him, her walls clamping down around him as she came.

He grinned in triumph. He could get very used to making Clarke Griffin come like that.

She opened her eyes and smiled a lazy sated smile, and then reached to pull his head down to hers, kissing him tenderly as she came down from her orgasm. She continued to meet his thrusts as he picked up the pace and found himself careening towards the edge, too. He came hard, her tightness around him, and he pulled her to him closely as he road out the edge and said her name on his breath, his face buried in her neck. He never, ever wanted to leave this place.  

But that was silly, of course, and eventually he had to pull away, to lift himself off of her so she can breathe properly and so they both could catch their breath. He turned onto his side so she had enough room and his gaze wandered over her and he was just completely _gone_ when it came to her, no joke about it.

The moment was short-lived, which he supposed was no surprise. Once her breathing returned to normal, Clark was swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and hunting for clothes, and Bellamy started feeling the fear creep in, because yeah, he’d just had sex with her and it was fucking perfect, but no, there was no telling how Clarke was going to react even though she had been a very willing participant.

“Jesus Christ,” she breathed, and he could hear her mind start spinning again.

“Clarke,” he said, because he was worried now about what she was going to do.

“No talking,” she said fiercely as she continued to dress, and he knew it was going downhill. She turned to him, a serious look on her face, waving her hand at the space between them.

“ _This_ didn’t happen.”

His heart sank, because of course, _of course_ this was how it would be. Clarke would never actually sleep with him and want to continue doing so, even though what had just happened between them was mind-blowing. No, Clarke would be stubborn and make his life pure hell. Because that’s what it was going to be if she got her way. Which she would, because there was something inside him when it came to this that needed to give Clarke what she wanted, even if it was counter to his own interests.

“If that’s what you want,” he said, knowing how cold his voice sounded.

“And it’s never going to happen again,” she continued.

She looked at him as she finished dressing, her face inscrutable, and he realized that he didn’t completely buy that. Clarke had sought him out tonight. He thought that maybe, just maybe, he had a chance at more of this.

She broke her gaze away finally and went out the door, gone into the night.

Bellamy lay back in his bed, his hand thrown over his eyes, and groaned.

This was going to be a huge mess.

 

_**_

 

Clarke managed to keep her word for almost a week, but barely. At first, she attempted to be serious about her ultimatum, but now that he knew how much she responded to him physically, he noticed the ways she reacted to being close to him—an accidental brush against each other in the lab, a lingering look out at the site—and knew that it was only a matter of time before she broke.

It was a late night in the lab, and the place was busy with other people too until suddenly it wasn’t, and only Clarke and Bellamy remained. He watched her watch the last person leave, her eyes clouding over.  

“What are you working on?” he asked when it became clear that she was losing focus.

“Stuff,” she said lamely.

He walked over to where she was sitting.

“Stuff,” he repeated, his breath close enough to stir her hair.

She shivered and nodded, slowly.

“Interesting,” he said, and she turned to look at him then, conflict written all over her face.

She stood up to face him, and they were standing close, her back up against the lab bench. He planted his arms on either side and she was completely caged in. Her blue eyes were swimming as she debated what she was going to do, and he thought about how funny it was that she was trying to fight it—this was only funny, of course, because he knew she was going to lose.

He leaned down as her eyes started to drift shut, and his lips found the side of her neck just below her ear. He kissed her there, and continued to kiss her along her neck until she gasped and tilted her head to the side and he could kiss her down to her collarbone and her shoulder.

Her hand reached for him and her fingers slid into his hair, a feeling he’d discovered last time that he enjoy _a lot_ , and soon she was dragging him up and capturing his lips with hers because she’d given up the fight.

He kissed her thoroughly, having missed her over the past week, and his body buzzed with relief and anticipation of having her again, because it was all he’d been able to think about, the feeling of being surrounded by Clarke, the feeling of consuming one another.

His hands slid over her body, which was clad in a pair of stretchy leggings and a tunic that pulled nicely down to her waist until he had her breasts bared again, kissing her nipples into rosy peaks. They both tugged at her leggings and underwear until they were down around one of her ankles and he lifted her to set her right up on the lab bench, her knees spread wide. He held eye contact with her as he kissed his way up her thigh and then his mouth was on her core, her eyes falling shut as she cursed his name.

“You like that?” he asked when he came up for air and she just grunted and shoved his head back down.

He loved her like this, so open and vulnerable and unbearably sexy, and he held her as she came apart under his tongue, feeling like the king of the world.

She pulled him up by the sleeve of his shirt until her eyes were even with his, the wicked smile on her face pulling enrapturing him completely.

“I want you inside me,” she said huskily, and his hips surged forward of their own volition before he paused.

“Shit,” he said, panicking slightly. “I don’t have a condom on me.”

She looked at him thoughtfully, quietly, his still fully clothed body between her thighs. “When was the last time you were tested?” she asked.

“March,” he replied.

“Did you sleep with anyone between then and now?” she continued.

Dammit. “Yeah, there was one—“

She shakes her head. “I don’t want to know the details. Did you wear a condom?”

“Every time,” he replied.

Her fingers were starting to fumble at his belt buckle, grazing his hard-on and making his hips cant forward again.

“I trust you,” she said. “Do you trust me?”

He nodded. “Of course I do.”

“I’m on the pill, so,” she said as she undid his belt and pulled it apart. “Don’t worry about the condom.”

His heart swelled then and he gazed at her, looking wanton with no pants on, telling him that she trusted him in one of the most intimate ways possible, and he was even further gone, then, tumbling quickly and irrevocably into a universe in which she was the center of everything.

He pulled his shirt over his head as she worked and she grasped him with her hand as soon as he was free of his underwear, the feel of her fingers on his cock so good he didn’t even know how to handle it. Her other hand reached for his arm and she laced her fingers with his, pulling him closer until he was sliding his other hand down and discovering just how wet she still was from him going down on her.

She cried out slightly at his touch and he remembered her words—he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget them— _I want you inside me_. And it was like nothing in the world could keep him from pulling her hips forward and surging into her. Her breasts bounced, nipples still peaked over the tangle of clothes bunched at her waist, and he leaned down to take one in his mouth as he moved inside her. She felt incredible, warm and soft and perfect with nothing left between them. She’d already come once, so he took the time to touch her, to adjust his angle so it felt good for her, because he wanted her to come again.

In addition to the fact that they just fit well together, there was something incredibly hot about the fact that they were clandestinely fucking each other in the lab right now, and it wasn’t long before Clarke was panting again, her back arched as he slammed into her hips where they rested at the perfect level on the bench. He ground his pelvis at just the right angle and suddenly he felt her inner muscles clutching around him. She grabbed his hand and bit down, and when he realized that she was stifling her scream as she came, he surged into her even harder.

“Good God,” she breathed as she came down once again, and she pulled him in for a kiss that started out tender and grew in intensity until they were warring with each other’s tongues.

He felt his own release quickly approaching, and he pulled her hips forward suddenly, causing her to gasp as he came hard inside her with nothing left between them. It was the most insanely perfect moment he had ever shared with a woman, and it was her, everything was _her_.

He rested his forehead against hers briefly, and then she was sitting up slightly, reaching for the box of tissues on her desk (ready for anything, Clarke was).

She was quiet, but she wasn’t shy, mostly naked in the lab as she cleaned herself up. He figured now was as good a time as any to get dressed, so he leaned down to pull up his underwear and his pants that he hadn’t bothered to fully take off. Christ, he even still had his boots on.

He caught her watching him as he zipped up his pants, her eyes ambling over him with a barely visible, almost feline smirk.

“You ogling me, Griffin?” he asked, his voice almost in awe as he realized that yeah, _she totally was_.

“Just observing my spoils,” she said, reaching down to pull up her underwear.

“Your  _spoils_?” he laughed, breaking into a smile. “Of what war?”

“My personal war with the irrational side of myself that thinks it’s a good idea to sleep with you,” she said with a hint of humorous resignation as she pulled her leggings back on. “Clearly my rational side is losing. Both sides of me get the spoils, though, so at least I get that benefit.”

He was close to her already, and he moved closer. Her gaze landed on his still-bare chest and continued to size him up like he was a piece of meat. She looked ridiculous and he wanted nothing more than to pull her in for another kiss, but he sensed this was drawing to a close.

“You’re rambling,” he told her, his fingers reaching up to tangle slightly in her hair.

“This is the last time,” she mumbled, her breath on his chest distracting him momentarily from his disappointment in her words.

It was so stupid, that insistence that they weren’t going to keep doing this, but he had to humor her for fear of scaring her away otherwise. In his eyes, now that they’d gotten started, it was going to be impossible to stop. They were that good together.

His fingers slid from her hair to her chin and tilted it up tenderly until she was looking him in the eye. He read what was there, read the lingering hesitation and the slight jerk of her head, and he knew she wasn’t ready to hear it yet. But he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold out.  

“Whatever you want, Clarke,” he said, his hand falling away as he shifted back to his more guarded self. He wasn’t going to put anything out in the open with her right now.

But soon, he was going to have to.

_**_

It happened again not even two days later. They were among the last few people in the caves at the end of the afternoon. They’d only seen each other from afar throughout the day, as there were each working with different groups of students, but every once in a while their eyes would catch and it was driving him crazy.

On her way out, Clarke walked past where he stood under the cave paintings in the new cavern and paused just long enough to say, “Swimming hole, ten minutes,” before continuing on her way.

Ten minutes later he found her in the water already, wearing nothing but her thin cotton tank plastered to her wet skin. Her breasts bobbed near the surface and he felt his blood rush straight down at the sight. She beckoned for him to join him and he was out of his clothes in seconds. He jumped in and let the cool river water wash over him, blessed relief after a day getting covered in dirt, and then surfaced in the pool to find Clarke floating nearby.

He swam over to her and she was trying to tamp down her wicked smile, but with little success. His arm snaked around her waist and pulled her towards him, their limbs tangling beneath the surface, and he kissed her, finally, after spending all day thinking about it.

She met his kiss and wrapped her legs around him, his arms sliding up to support her, and there was nothing but the two of them, wrapped up in each other, with the flow of the river and the sounds of the birds surrounding them, and he knew he could die happy in that moment.

She shivered eventually and they broke apart, Clarke laughing as he rubbed his hands over her goosebumps. He helped her up and out of the river, to warm up in the sun that was still high on the horizon, and before he knew what was happening she was pulling him down to her on a soft bed of moss.

He kissed her as her hair fanned out beneath her, and he noticed again the contrast of his dark tan with her skin, which was golden from the sun by then but still much fairer than his. She shucked her underwear off. He ducked down to catch her nipple in his mouth through the wet fabric that still clung to her skin and she arched up, his name on her lips. Then she was using her thighs and a subtle shove on the shoulder to coax him onto his back, throwing her leg across his waist, and at this point his mind started to go blank.

She leaned down to kiss him and his arms slid up along her sides and back down to her hips. She found him, hard and ready for her, and positioned herself just so, slowly sliding down until her eyes closed and she bit her lip and groaned out his name on three long syllables.

Her hands ran over her torso as she adjusted to having him inside her, and soon she was pulling at her wet tank, peeling it away from her skin until she tossed it aside and tilted her head back, fully bared now to the sun and the breeze and him.

He bucked his hips up and she squealed in pleasure and she looked like a goddess to him then, riding him in the sun, fully open and free in ways he never, ever saw her. He slid his hands upward and palmed her breasts and she arched back slightly to give him better access.

“Fuck, Clarke,” he breathed, because she was killing him right now.

“Bellamy,” she breathed. “I want…”

“Tell me what you want,” he said, his hand sliding around her hip.

“I want—fuck!” she exclaimed as he thrust into her harder, changing the angle slightly. “Oh fuck—I want— _more of that._ ”

She was moaning now as he thrust into her, his finger starting to circle her clit. “You like that?” he asked between thrusts.

“I like—oh! Fucking _Christ_ , right there—“

“Where do you want it?”

“ _There._ God _dammit_ , Bellamy…” she said, and her voice died on a sigh.

He grasped both of her hips and there was a sudden urgency between them, because he could feel her starting to unwind, and he was starting to lose control too, and they moved together faster and harder until everything exploded. She cried his name out into the open air as she tightened around him and he saw stars as he came with her, pulsing over and over again as he emptied himself inside her.

Clarke fell onto his chest as she came down from her high, breathing into his neck, and he felt her smile against his skin, her still-wet hair cold where it touched him.

She rolled off of him eventually. “I think I almost blacked out,” she said with that low chuckle.

He burst out in a laugh at that because _Jesus Christ girl, you’re telling me_. 

“I know I’m good, but  _that_ good…” he joked.

“Don’t let it get to your head,” she said as she slugged him lightly on the arm, looking up at the sky. “Somehow, against all odds, we’re obviously really…  _really_  sexually compatible. I get at least fifty percent of the credit.”

He laughed again, amazed by the amount of joy her ridiculous reasoning could bring him. Of course she wanted to share credit for the quality of the sex they were having, because Clarke Griffin was a feminist and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

He allowed his hand to stray over to her side and trail down her abdomen to brush away at piece of moss as he worked his way up to saying more. He had to do it soon or he’d lose the nerve.

“Clarke,” he said, his eyes moving from where his hands met her skin to her own gaze, which was looking at him softly. “I know you’re going to say that this isn’t going to happen again, but… I could keep doing this.”

She shivered and looked away, pulling her panties on, and then rolled over onto her side, breasts still bared to the sun and his gaze.

“Let’s make a deal,” she said, and he wondered if she knew how much power she held over him in that moment.

“I’m listening,” he said, propping himself up on his elbow so they faced each other on their bed of moss, like two forest dwellers having a domestic conversation in bed.

“We can be available to each other in this capacity for the rest of the season, but only on the down low,” she said, a slightly nervous tremble in her voice. “Nobody knows about this but us. Okay?”

He slid his hand over her, memorizing the look of it against her hip, watching her muscles jump under his touch. She was giving him an impossible choice. Unlimited sex? Yes, plenty. As long as emotional availability was kept off the table.

“I can live with that,” he replied, finally, but he knew he was only speaking about the temporary. He could give Clarke what she wanted, but at what cost to his own sanity?

Clarke smiled in relief and he felt the rush he always got now when he made her happy. She continued to get dressed and soon she was standing above him, looking down, her face thoughtful. He thought she was going to turn and go, but instead she leaned down and kissed him fully on the lips, one last taste before they went back to reality.

“That settles it, then,” she said.

She turned as she stood and he reached out to slap her on the ass because it’s right there, and really, if she expects him to resist that kind of temptation, she’s got this deal figured out wrong in her head.

“Hey!” she cried, jumping away, but he heard the laughter in her voice. “Don’t push your luck.”

 

He smiled and watched her walk away, and knew he had never felt both satisfied and frustrated like this ever before in his life, but that he was going to have to get used to it.

There was no other way.

 


	16. July 2015, part 2

## July 2015, part 2

Bellamy holds Clarke in his arms for a moment after she tumbles through the opening in the rocks, more a catching of a jumble of limbs than an embrace, but she’s _there_. It’s not exactly a great spot for sure footing so he has to pull away to get them down safely. Clarke looks around as they descend, breathing in her surroundings, her eyes readjusting to the light, and as he watches her take it all in it hits him, really, the enormity of what she’s just been through.

As soon as they are on the ground again he grabs her and pulls her into his arms and breathes into her hair, because she’s okay, she’s okay, _she’s okay_ , and he’s going to be okay too now that she’s safe. She wraps her arms around him, burying her face in his chest, and his heart pounds, the tears stinging again. His hand slides around the curve of her head and he holds her closer than he has in a long time.

Octavia was right. He loves her. He is _in love_ with her, deeply, irrevocably. He has no idea what he’s going to do about this realization, but he supposes acknowledging it now, as he holds her here, is a first step.

“You’re okay,” he whispers into her hair, because he needs to remind himself, too. “I got you.” 

Octavia is next to them, saying something, but he doesn’t really absorb any of it until he sees her face shift into a worried expression.

“Clarke, are you bleeding?” she asks, and his panic starts to creep back in.

“I thought you said you weren’t injured,” he asks, searching her eyes as she pulls back, but she breaks away from his gaze and looks down at her leg. 

“I said I was fine, and I am,” she tells Octavia, but the blood on her leg seems to indicate otherwise.

Octavia is already kneeling next to Clarke, rolling up the leg of her jeans to assess the damage.

“This isn’t nothing, Clarke,” she says, looking at Bellamy, who is becoming increasingly worried because she’s supposed to be safe now, not hurt.

“It’s a gash from a rock,” Clarke says wearily. “The bleeding has stopped, it doesn’t need to be stitched up. It can’t be, really, not a blunt injury like that. The most important thing is to clean it out and dress it properly.”

After more back and forth with Octavia and some insistent words to a worried Bellamy, Clarke convinces them all that she doesn’t need to go to a hospital, she just needs to get patched up and get some rest. Ever the independent woman, she starts limping back in the direction of camp herself, but Bellamy catches her before she gets too far and offers her his arm, which she takes, thankfully.

He hands her off to Octavia when they get close to their cabins, because Octavia is all ready with the med kit and determined to take care of Clarke before she goes to sleep. His heart swells with pride for Octavia in that moment, his strong, capable little sister with her fierce insistence on taking care of others. She’d gotten her wilderness first aid training the year before and he had been proud of her then, but is now even more proud, and extremely thankful that she is putting it to use to help Clarke.

The women shut them outside after that. He talks with Lincoln for a while about what they’re going to do about the mess in the caves, and then paces around while he waits for Octavia to finish. Eventually he gets impatient enough that he walks back onto Clarke’s porch and knocks on the door.

Clarke is sitting on the bed when he walks in, wearing a soft t-shirt and a pair of sleep shorts he remembers from the summer before. Octavia is bent over her leg fixing a piece of tape into place and she looks up at Bellamy and gives him a nod.

“How’s the damage?” he asks.

“I’ll live,” Clarke says on a yawn. “Octavia, thank you. You did a great job bandaging me up and getting me into my PJ’s.”

“I’m glad you’re okay, Clarke,” she says with a smile. “I was really worried. We all were.”

“Everything ended up alright,” Clarke replies. “I’m thankful for that. It’s late, you guys have been up all night rescuing me. You should get some sleep.”

“What’s the plan for tomorrow?” Octavia asks as she repacks the med kit.

“I think we should give the students a couple days off,” Bellamy says, conveying what he and Lincoln had discussed. “I don’t want them running around the caves while we’re figuring out what’s stable and what’s not.”

“Good idea,” Clarke says.

Octavia nods. As a grad student, she’s a part of the leadership team, a kind of liaison between them and the field school students, and he knows she’s more than capable of helping them with this. “I’ll go let Jasper and Monty know so we can make the announcement at breakfast.”

“Thanks, O,” he says. She gives him a meaningful look as she heads for the door, and he knows she would have a mouthful to say to him if they were alone, but they aren’t.

And then Octavia is gone, and Bellamy is alone, with Clarke.

“So,” she says, getting up and hobbling over to her desk. He moves to stop her but she puts her hand out, keeping him where he is. “This will change the schedule for the rest of the summer. We should talk about what we’re going to do.”

Business as usual. After a long night of dealing with a very serious situation, they’re back to business as usual. _Of fucking course_.

“Clarke, it’s late,” he says, and he sounds frustrated, even to himself. “And you just—you were stuck in there for  _hours_. Logistics can wait until the morning.”

She looks at him with that serious, straightforward gaze of hers and asks, “So what are you doing here?”

She might as well have punched him in the gut. He knows Clarke so well by now, knows that she isn’t as cold as she wants the world to think she is. And he knows that she is going to keep fighting to maintain that distance, almost out of habit at this point—their conversation after her fight with her mother had confirmed for him the layers she builds up over her heart—but it still stings every time she tries to shut him out.

“I’m…” he says, fighting to get it together. “I need to make sure that you’re okay.”

“Bellamy, I’m fine.”

He thinks of the resolutions he made in his mind on the way to cave earlier and decides that he’s not going to let her do this, not anymore. He walks over to where she’s standing until he’s close enough that the space between them sparks with the static energy of _them_ , and he knows she notices by the very slight tremor that runs through her body. She doesn’t back away.

“You’re in one piece, and you’re relatively uninjured, thank God. But Clarke… you know how serious that was.”

She won’t make eye contact with him, but she nods.

“If you’d been in the front of the passageway when those rocks fell, or if more of it had come down, you could have been—you could be—“ and then he has to stop, because if he keeps talking he’s going to lose it.  

“I  _know_ ,” she says, looking up at him finally. “But it didn’t. It happened, and it could have been really bad, but I’m okay. We just need to—”

He can’t hold back any longer. His hands skim her jawline and he cuts her off with a kiss, making good on his promise to himself from earlier, and trying to make a promise to her, if she’ll let him.

She is very still at first, and then she softens into it, tugging his bottom lip between hers for a moment and causing his heart to leap before she breaks the kiss and looks at him with the weight of the years lying between them.  

“Bellamy,” she says quietly. Sadly.

He’s tired. He is so goddamn tired. Emotionally, physically… It all starts to hit him right then, when he hears the protest building inside her mind, the sadness in her voice. She’s not pushing him away like she normally does, but she’s not letting him in yet, either.

“I told myself I’d do that if we got you out,” he tells her, his voice barely above a whisper.

Her lip trembles slightly and she bites it to keep it under control, and he sees how exhausted she is, too.

This is it. The breaking point. They’ve finally reached it.

“I can’t do this anymore, Clarke,” he says.

She swallows. “Can’t do what?”

It’s a rhetorical question. They both know they’re talking about the broken mess between them. She wraps her arms around herself and he sees her fighting inside, her own worst enemy. He watches her for a few beats, debating whether he should say anything more, but he decides that at the end of the day there’s nothing he can do to help her with that battle. She has to figure it out on her own.

“I need some air,” he says finally. “Goodnight, Clarke.”

He heads out into the darkness and keeps walking, away from the cabins.

Sleep will be a long time coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My heart is so soft right now, I just want to go and have a good, long cry on behalf of these two. I read a great fic last night that reminded me of why I love writing the angsty Bellarke love (the fire is coming by feminist14er). Sometimes I get so caught up in the nuts and bolts of writing, I forget to let myself really feel, but then I do and it is so, so glorious (and frustrating and crazy-making and jeez, why is my life so consumed by a fictional pairing... story of the victim of an OTP etc). 
> 
> I've been updating pretty religiously but am going to take a few days off before the final two chapters for some real life reasons and also because I want to watch and process the finale and see if it influences my writing at all. I don't expect anything romantic to happen between B and C yet on the show--I'm a sucker for the slow burn, as I'm sure you know if you've made it to this point in reading this piece--but just seeing them together, what they say, how they look at each other, I just can't wait to die watching and then die again reblogging each and every gif set.
> 
> And now I'm rambling. Thank you, dearest readers who have been reading along and supporting me as I go. You mean the world and you make this all worth it. I'll be back in a few days.


	17. July and August 2014

## July and August 2014

They were ravenous for each other. July had a fever pitch to it, with the pace of work at its fastest, and them trying to balance their argumentative problem solving with their insatiable appetites for each other.

It was funny, the way they fought now. They still disagreed constantly, and neither was willing to back down on their opinions without a fight, but the nasty barbs were gone. They needed to argue, he realized, to find solutions to their problems, but they didn't have to hurt one another to find a resolution.

Arguing also served as incredible foreplay. There was something about the way Clarke got him worked up over a conflict that transformed very quickly and seamlessly into sexual passion, and it made sense when he thought about how long he'd felt attraction to Clarke. 

So they'd argue and then they'd tear each other's clothes off, and he never knew he could enjoy fighting so much.

Their desire went beyond the arguing, too. They had always had a way of communicating with one another using a look, developed over years of collaborative decision-making. That summer, they developed a new look. Exhibit D: blonde tempest meeting his gaze across the mess hall at the end of dinner, holding it for a few beats, then tilting her head slightly in the direction of their cabins, leading to them being in one of said cabins within minutes, lips locked.

With the exception of the times when Clarke decided that she really wanted to make good use of Bellamy's desk—she had a thing about being bent over his desk that he was happy to indulge—they usually ended up in her cabin, because she had the bigger bed. He'd resented her for this the summer before, even if she technically did have seniority over him in that she'd been around a lot longer. It was just another thing to argue about, really.

But now that he got to share that bed, well... it's a different story. If it had been his bed, it would have been made up with practical (read: _cheap_ ) bedding and nine times out of ten he would probably end up in his sleeping bag on top of the covers anyway. But Clarke had brought soft cotton sheets with her from home that were the perfect weight for the summer heat and the most glorious texture against bare skin, as he knew from getting tangled up in them on a regular basis. There was a lightweight duvet that usually got tossed aside rather quickly, and a nest of pillows that combined with everything else to make Clarke's bed a haven of softness in an otherwise rustic setting. 

The first time they had sex in her bed, she kicked him out fairly quickly afterwards, which wasn't a surprise given that it was in the middle of the day and they both had to get back to work. The first time they ended up in her bed at night, he fully intended to leave afterwards, but it turned out the combination of a big, comfortable bed, the privacy of the cabin, and nowhere to be until the following morning meant they just had more time and space to explore each other, multiple times, and by the time they were finished with the second round he could do little more than fall asleep, exhausted, with his hand tangled in her hair.

He slept like a rock until he was woken by a sudden movement next to him, and he opened his eyes to find her sitting up, her breath quick, and he knew by her body language that her thoughts were crashing back into her mind. He reached over and touched her back, his fingers grazing over her skin as he sought to comfort her.

“Shhhhh, s’alright. Just sleep, Clarke,” he said as he began to run his palm slowly over her skin, lightly caressing the curve of her spine until she slowly lay back down on her stomach, her face resting on the pillow facing him.  

He was too tired to keep his eyes open, but he knew she was watching him. He continued to run his hand over her back, his fingers tangling in her hair again—he loved her hair—until her breath evened out and she was asleep. He let himself fall back asleep after that.

A few hours later he woke to the early dawn light, Clarke still sound asleep beside him. They’d spent the full night together, he realized, and it felt… good. It felt _too_ good, waking up next to her, and he wasn’t sure how she would react if she woke up and he was still there. So he carefully extracted himself from the bed, pulled on his clothes, and got out of the cabin.

For the first few weeks of their arrangement, it had felt like the summer could never end, like they could stay in a suspended state of sneaking off and being together. Bellamy was just as bad as Clarke in some ways, in that he didn’t want to talk about what they were doing and what it might mean. But his reticence had more to do with not wanting to ruin a good thing, whereas hers was rooted in a stubbornness that he wasn’t able to interpret. She was still too much of a closed book to him.

By the time late summer rolled around, though, he had to face the reality of the summer ending, of settling back into his normal life. Which was when things got confusing. It hit him one day when he was working in the lab and he saw a box of samples that had already been taped up, with a Vancouver address scrawled on the top in Monty’s handwriting. They were all going back, and soon.

When they’d started their whole arrangement, the agreement had been that nobody else would know. They hadn’t put a time limit on it. And here was where Bellamy got worried, and confused about what he was feeling, because he didn’t want it to end, not at all. And they lived in the same city so, in theory, the arrangement could continue when they got back to Vancouver. Convincing Clarke that this was a good idea was the challenge.

The other challenge was dealing with the very real fact that he had feelings for her that went beyond just sex. He’d known this from the beginning, from the day it hit him in front of the caves, but he’d kept those feelings close to his chest because the situation with Clarke was so unpredictable. She opened up to him when they were together in ways he never thought he would see, and there were moments when he was kissing her, or when they held eye contact while he was inside of her, when he felt like his heart could burst from the emotional weight of it all. But her openness was limited to when they were having sex, and he didn’t want to push her for more.

He’d been with a few women over the years who had developed feelings for him during what he saw as casual sexual arrangements, so he knew that being pushy about feelings tended to come off as clingy and desperate. The irony of the fact that he was now in that exact situation but reversed was not lost on him.

So he held those feelings inside, where they were safe. He also knew Clarke well enough at this point that he could predict what kinds of things pushed her in what ways, and he knew that revealing the way he felt about her would push her running in the opposite direction.

Not that he could really articulate what he felt for her, anyway. All he knew was that he had fallen for her, _hard_ , and here they were, in an ambiguous sexual relationship that, if he was honest with himself, he wanted to turn into more. But how to get it to that point, that was the confusing part.

The last few days of the season came too quickly, and they were all working overtime to get everything packed and ready to leave. At the end of a very long day, Bellamy found himself in Clarke’s bed again—she’d simply reached for his hand when they were finishing up in the lab and said “five minutes?”—and something made him want to slow down, to take his time and enjoy her. Because it was becoming all too real that summer was ending, that _this_ was ending if he didn’t do something about it, and he wasn’t ready for that yet.

She reached for him as soon as he slipped inside her door, her hands gliding over his chest and up into his hair as she pulled him down for a kiss. He loved kissing her, loved the way they tangled with each other until they found a rhythm, loved how she paid special attention to his bottom lip, how she kissed the corner of his mouth she when wanted him to kiss her neck. It was like a new language they’d discovered between them, and he relished the feel of it.

They fell into her bed eventually and he took his time undressing her, slowing her hands when she tried to yank her shirt off. He slid it off of her carefully, kissing her ribcage and then her breasts through her bra, which he removed next, and laid her down on her back so he could focus all of his attention on appreciating that particularly favorite part of her anatomy. He smiled to himself as he remembered the way he used to get distracted in the midst of their arguments by her low cut shirts, and he’s grateful that all of that frustration ended with him here, in her bed, palming her with his hands, using his fingers and his mouth on her until she was writhing beneath him.

“More,” she said on a moan, and he chuckled into her skin.

“Patience,” he muttered as he began to kiss his way down her stomach, eventually reaching the waistband of her pants, which he undid and then slid down her legs and off until they landed on the floor. He kissed the waistband of her underwear, his hand coming to rest on her hip and then slid those down too, and she was completely naked beneath him.

He kissed his way back up her leg until he reached her hip, where he nuzzled into her skin because he couldn’t resist and she looked at him, her eyes clouded with desire but also with confusion as if she couldn’t understand what was taking him so long. They had been together in a lot of different ways over the course of the past month, but almost all of those ways were urgent, burning towards a finish without time to stop and catch their breath.

“Faster,” she whispered, but he didn’t want to give in to her demands just yet. He kissed her softly on her stomach, her belly button, the underside of her breast. He knew she was getting impatient when she raked her fingers across his scalp, so he slid his hand down to her curls and found her wet and ready as he circled his thumb over her clit and elicited a satisfied sigh from her. He kissed back downward and replaced his thumb with his mouth and her sigh turned into a cry. He knew exactly how she liked it, curving his fingers inside her as he suckled her with his mouth, and he coaxed her higher and higher until she was screaming his name, her muscles clamping down on his fingers as she came.

He kissed his way up her body again, his hands following, stopping to squeeze her breasts again as he kissed her neck and then finally her mouth. She sighed into the kiss and he loved her like this, post-orgasm Clarke, soft and tender and putty in his hands.

“You’re still dressed,” she observed once they broke the kiss.

“True,” he said.

“Better fix that,” she replied, hands sliding down to unbuckle his belt.

He leaned back and pulled his shirt over his head and she smiled up at him wickedly as she unzipped his pants and yanked them down his hips before reaching for the waistband of his boxer briefs and pulling those down, too. He straightened to kick it all off at the foot of the bed and then finally they were naked, together, limbs tangling and lips seeking each other. He ran his hands everywhere until they twined in her hair and her hands were running down his flank, pulling him to her.

He held her gaze as he positioned himself above her and she grasped him with her hand, guiding him to her center, her blue eyes hazy in the darkness. Her eyes stayed open as he slowly entered her, and he got lost in the blue, lost in the human connection that they’d found together, lost in her. They moved slowly, sinuously, and it occurred to him that this was what the phrase _making love_ meant. The implications of that, well, that was for later consideration.

By the time Clarke started urging him to move faster, the quiver of her around him indicating that she was close, he was ready, too. He reached under her to tilt her hips slightly so that he gave her the best possible friction and increased the pace, and she rose to meet him, eagerly. Her head tilted back as she cried his name out again, clenching around him and causing him to come hard, emptying inside her, his lips murmuring her name against her collarbone where it met her neck.

His moved off of her after a few moments and let his head fall down to the pillows, because he was sated and spent, and he needed a moment. He kept his hand on her arm, though, because he wasn’t quite ready to let go.

“We’re going home soon,” he whispered eventually.

“Mmmhmm,” Clarke said softly, her eyes still closed.

His heart had started to hammer, because he wanted to steer this into new territory.

“Where in town do you live?” he asked.

He felt her muscles stiffen and his heart sank.

“What?” she asked, her eyes now wide open.

He kept going, because he’d already jumped off this cliff and figured he might as well crash all the way to the bottom. “Where in town do you live? You know, in Vancouver, the city we reside in? The life we live nine months of the year that we never discuss?”

She looked at him for a long moment and he felt her mind spinning, felt her shutters coming down.

“It doesn’t matter where I live,” she said eventually, her voice low and serious, like she was trying to say more. There was always something more there, with her. He just wished he could fucking translate the silence between the words.

“Clarke,” he said, hating the pain in his voice.

She interrupted him before he could get any further.

“It doesn’t matter, because this is over as soon as we’re out of here. You know what the kids say. What happens at L’Arche stays at L’Arche,” she said, her voice reaching for a flippant tone that made his blood boil.

He couldn’t respond at first. His stomach churned in agony over the discrepancy between the front she was trying to put on and the way she had just cried out his name—twice—like he was… like he _meant something_ to her, but he knew that this was Clarke, this was her stubborn refusal to allow him past her carefully constructed walls. Something ( _someone_?), somewhere along the line had made her this way, and he was furious that he didn’t know the answer to that mystery.

He needed to get out of here, get away, because this was bad. This was starting to take on the tone of the kind of fight that they hadn’t had in a long time, the kind where they wanted to cause each other pain.

But he can’t stop the words from coming.

“So I’m just your summer fuck buddy, is that it? You really want it that way?” he asked as he got up, his words harsh. If she was going to be cruel, he would meet her in that.

“Yeah. I do,” she said, her eyes ablaze. She grabbed his pants and underwear from where they were crumpled at the foot of the bed and threw them at him. “That was our agreement when this all started. Nothing has changed on my end.”

The bottom dropped out of his stomach. She was staring him down, daring him to reveal what he’d been harbouring, and he couldn’t help but wonder for a moment what she would do if he did, if he screamed _you’re fucking right it’s changed on my end_ , but he couldn’t go there. He couldn’t submit himself to her like that, not with all the unknowns that still lay between them, and the way that she was torturing him like this with her words and her body language was too much.

“I thought I discovered a different side of you this season,” he said as he pulled his boxer briefs into place. “Something softer, more human behind that ice-cold exterior of yours. But I was wrong, wasn’t I.”

Her eyes flared, but she tempered them with chilly calm as she said, “If that’s what you want to tell yourself.”

The _ice princess_ was one of his least favourite Clarke voices, and it pushed him over the edge.

“What is it, Clarke?” he asked, throwing his hands up in frustration, finally just flat-out asking her the question that haunted him. “What is it that makes you so afraid?” 

The icy calm vanished, replaced by fire as she grabbed her bedsheet to her chest and stood to face him.  

“I’m not afraid of  _shit_ , Bellamy Blake,” she said, rising up like always to try and meet his height. She was spitting mad, and he knew he’d pushed _her_ over her edge, too. “Now get the hell out of my cabin before I have to physically shove you out the door.” 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?” he asked with a harsh laugh. He couldn't resist using her own words to make his point. “I’m only available to you in  _this capacity_  for another thirty-six hours or so, you might want to capitalize on your  _deal_  before it ends.”

She marched over to him as he gathered his clothes and backed towards the door. “You,” she said, her hand on his skin to shove him away, and it broke something inside him to be touched like that. “Get out. _Now_.”

He seethed, shaking his head as he shoved on his boots and stomped out of the cabin, only to find that they had an audience.

Octavia and Lincoln were standing in the clearing with Jasper and Raven. Octavia’s eyes were huge, and she was staring at him with a million questions on her face. Great. That was going to suck to deal with. Lincoln looked impassive as usual, for which Bellamy was thankful. Jasper’s jaw needed to be picked up off the ground. Raven just smirked at him, because _of course_ Raven had seen straight through their bullshit all along.

He couldn’t deal with this right now. He glared at them in a way that commanded silence as he strode back to his cabin, not giving a shit that he was only in his underwear, because he was still so, so angry at Clarke that he could barely see straight anyway.

He turned to see if she was watching and indeed she was, standing in her doorway, eyes fierce. He gave her the finger, a petty touch reminiscent of their earlier fights, but he couldn’t resist being petty, and she returned the gesture, the exchange being the icing on the cake of this fight.

It all came crashing down on him as he slammed the door to his cabin and threw his clothing at the wall. He was angry and sad and lost and it was all her fault. And all his fault, too, for being stupid enough to fall for such an impossible woman in the first place. As he’d predicted practically from the moment he first realized he was falling for Clarke, it all now lay in rubble at his feet.

They’d done it in their typical style, he supposed.

They’d burned the summer—and each other—to the fucking ground.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it, my coping mechanism for dealing with the finale. Smut AND a nasty fight, all in one! Oh the pain, the pain! Now that I know how much it hurts to watch a Bellamy's Clarke-related pain onscreen, I have more sympathy for the reactions to his pain in this fic. This was actually a really fascinating chapter to write, because I wrote them being mean to each other in the original, and wasn't sure how it would feel to do it again, but I actually loved writing this from his side. I love playing their tempers off of one another, and getting at how he is still pretty confused over his feelings. He gets Clarke in many core ways already, but he still doesn't fully understand why she pushes him away. And now we can move on to the FINAL(E) chapter, which will be a bit more pain but then joy (and smut), so never fear, my loves! Happy Bellarke is coming soon :D


	18. July 2015, part 3

## July 2015, part 3

 

He wakes early the next morning after a terrible night of sleep, ready to dive into work and solve the problem of the caves. His physical exhaustion is nothing compared to the gaping wound that is his heart, torn open by last night and the realization that he is so far gone when it comes to Clarke. He is in love with Clarke Griffin, and he has been for a very long time, but it’s always been hidden beneath too many other things—infuriation and frustration from the beginning, grudging respect that grew into mutual trust, and then last summer’s mix of physical gratification that was just a part of the process of falling even more deeply in love with her.

He’s been resisting this realization all summer and it’s daunting to contemplate the extent to which his feelings go, because he’s never felt this way about a woman before. He loves his sister, he loved his mother, and Clarke really is a part of his family now too, he realizes. But he loves her beyond that. He has been falling for years, and now that he’s letting himself think about it, every interaction he’s ever had with her weaves into a great mass of emotion that threatens to swallow him whole. He has never believed in soul mates, because, well, science, but he knows beyond a doubt that Clarke is _his person_ , the other side to his coin.

And he is terrified, because if she keeps pushing him away, if she chooses to shut him out, he doesn’t know how he will survive that. The last year of his life has been excruciating, ignoring his feelings for her to make staying away less painful for him, and having no success. And he knows now that he can’t do that anymore. He can’t ignore this. And he is so afraid that she won’t let him in.

But he doesn’t know what to do. This is how it always goes when he realizes something major about his feelings for her. He is disoriented to the point where he can’t see straight anymore, and after holding her in the cave, after kissing her, after his broken exit from her cabin, he has no idea what she might do, so he goes back to plan A.

He avoids.

Octavia finds him at the caves around breakfast time, and she has brought him a breakfast sandwich, because he’s already been here for an hour, staring at the rocks, his head in a fog.

Octavia looks at him sadly. Great. Does he really look that pathetic?

He knows he does, and he _doesn’t care_. 

“We’re going to be here all day cleaning up this mess,” he says, holding the sandwich. He’s not very hungry, but he knows he needs to eat so he has strength for the day of physical labour ahead. “Can you tell Clarke for me? She’s going to want to come out here to help, but don’t let her. Tell her she needs to rest after last night, I don’t want her aggravating her injury.”

Octavia looks at him and shakes her head. “She’s going to hate that plan.”

“I know,” he says, “but it doesn’t matter. Make sure she takes care of herself.”

“Bellamy…” Octavia says, and he thinks she’s about to say more, but her voice fades out.

“Don’t worry about me,” he says, and he means it. He feels badly that Octavia has to be stuck between them, knows that this must be a nightmare for her, too, and he doesn’t want to cause her any more stress. “Now let’s get this shit done.”

He dives into the work, directing the crew when they arrive, and it’s a long, hot, physical day, but if he’d been hoping that it would take his mind off of Clarke, he was wrong. She’s in his mind all day, even though she is tucked away back at camp, and by the time things start to wrap up he feels so raw inside that he doesn’t want to go back there—he wants to work into the night, if he can. But there’s no more work to be done. They’ve gotten to the point where they’ve done as much as they can do and they need the experts to come in and give them direction. He’s beat to hell inside and out and the prospect of a free evening is nothing but wide-open potential for dwelling on things.

“There’s nothing more we can do but wait,” Lincoln says to him as they head back towards camp.

“I know,” he says. “I just wish I could do more. I need to keep going.”

Lincoln looks at him with a contemplative expression on his face as they walk in silence for a moment.

“I’ve known Clarke a long time,” Lincoln says eventually, and Bellamy’s heart jerks at the mention of her name. “You two are very alike.”

It’s not what he’s expecting to hear. “You think so?”

Lincoln nods. “Work. You always need to work. I worried that Octavia would become the same, when she began to study with Clarke, but she knows how to stop, when to rest. You and Clarke, you don’t know how to do this.”

Bellamy sighs. It’s true, but he’s not sure why Lincoln is talking about it. Lincoln is a man of few words, so when he does choose to speak, he does it with purpose.

“You are both very determined people. But sometimes I think you are too determined, that you miss other things happening around you.”

Bellamy chokes out a sad laugh. “Lincoln,” he starts to say, but Lincoln cuts him off.

“I’m not like Octavia. I won’t bother you about romance, all of that. But I care for Clarke like a sister. I know that she is strong-willed, that she misses things on purpose. You are the only person in her life who she trusts, completely, but she is stubborn. Don’t let her miss you.”

Bellamy just looks at Lincoln and ponders the weight of his words, because Lincoln has known Clarke for almost ten years. He has seen her grow from young college student to professor, seen her go through various phases of her life, seen her deal with the pain of losing Wells. He has watched her become the person she is now. And he believes that Clarke trusts Bellamy.

“I don’t know if she’ll let me do that,” he says, because fuck it, there’s no use pretending with Lincoln, who sees and knows so much.

“That is all I can tell you,” Lincoln replies with a shrug.

Bellamy slows as they reach the turnoff for the trail to the river. “Can you tell her what we got done today? She’s probably in her cabin chomping at the bit right now. I need to cool off.”

_And avoid going back to camp for as long as possible._

Lincoln looks at him for a long moment and nods, then reaches out to clap him on the shoulder, a masculine gesture that Bellamy appreciates. Lincoln wants the best for them, he knows. If only it were that simple.

He is grateful for the time alone at the river, knowing that everyone else has already gone back. He shucks off his shirt and jumps in, allowing the cool water to sweep him along, eyes closed as he tries to focus on the elements around him, tries to silence his mind. He swims for a while like this, but the water is cool enough that he can’t stay in forever, so he climbs out eventually and uses his shirt to dry himself off.

He takes his time getting dressed, each item of clothing bringing him closer to reality, and once he has his pants on he pauses to look out over the water. He loves this place. It is more of a home to him than his Vancouver apartment ever could be, and the thought of going back there, the thought of another solitary year makes his heart sink, his fear rushing back in. The stark reality of how life will have to be after this starts to take shape in his mind, the life he will have if he has to cope with loving Clarke when she won’t let him. He knows he has to start now, planning how to survive it, if he wants to have any shot at all.

He’s contemplating this grim future when a voice startles him. Her voice.

“Hey.”

He jumps and turns to find her there, standing at the edge of the woods, and he can’t quite believe that she is here, that she is right here with him, and not back at camp, because usually when one of them avoids the other reciprocates with equal avoidance. It has been their way all summer.  

“You’re supposed to be taking it easy,” he says carefully, cautious because he is caught off guard. He’d been preparing to wallow in his misery for a while, not to speak with her face to face, but now that she is here, well, there’s not much he can do.

She walks towards him, joining him where he stands on the bank. “I took it easy all day,” she says, looking down at the water. “If I didn’t get out and do something I was going to go crazy.”

He just nods at her, because that’s exactly what he had expected. He just didn’t expect her to come here.

She bites her lip and then looks at him.

“Lincoln delivered your message,” she says, the line between her eyebrows present, the tone in her voice full of knowing.

She knows him so well, but he rarely realizes just how much she does, until she says something like that, with so much unsaid between the lines. 

He just looks down at the moss, because he’s afraid this could turn into a fight, and he doesn’t have the heart to fight with her, not now. “I knew you’d want to be updated on what we got done today,” he responds eventually. 

“You just didn’t want to update me yourself,” she says.

She’s right. He didn’t want to update her himself, because he didn’t want to have a mundane conversation with her about caves and rocks when all he could do was think about how _batshit crazy in love with her_ he was, to paraphrase Octavia.

“Not really,” he says finally, because he’s too tired for bullshit.

Her face clouds slightly and he realizes that she is hurt. She is hurt by _him_ shutting _her_ out. The ridiculousness of that hits him, but maybe it’s not so crazy after all. This is a two way street.

“I guess we’ve gotten pretty good at avoiding each other over the years,” she says.

He stares at her now, trying to read her, trying to figure out where to go, what to do next.

He settles with honesty. “I don’t know how to be around you right now, Clarke. I just don’t.”

Her eyes flash with more hurt and she turns to the water, her profile outlined in afternoon sunshine, accented by the brilliant greens of the high summer foliage. He forces himself to look away and decides the water is as good a place as any.

“And yet here we are,” he mutters, almost to himself, because it’s real, it’s all too real. The conversation is happening, and he can’t stomach getting his hopes up.

He hears her intake of a deep breath and knows she is about to continue, so he braces himself.  

“Bellamy, look. I know we—we push each other’s buttons. And we push each other away.”

He can’t help the laugh that erupts, that he tries to contain as he relives a sliver of the pain he’s felt as a result of that pushing. “At the end of last summer you pushed me away so hard I almost got injured in the landing. In my underwear outside your cabin, if I remember correctly. You have quite the pushing strength.”

Clarke looks at him, her eyes clear, and he expects her to be angry at his words—she certainly would have been in the past—but instead she studies him, reading his face. 

“You asked me what I was afraid of,” she says after a while, her voice soft and low.

“What?” he asks, taken aback, because this is not the direction he expected her to go.

“That fight we had, at the end of last summer,” she continued in the same voice. “You asked me what made me so afraid.”

He had asked her that—been dying to know the answer to it, actually—but he’d never expected her to bring it up again, given how angry it had made her when he’d said it.

“I did ask you that,” he says, nodding. He supposes that if she wants to relive that awful moment, he doesn’t have much choice other than to relive it with her. “Do you remember your answer?”

She laughs sadly. “I vehemently denied fearing anything, like I always do.”

She had indeed done exactly that, and it had frustrated him beyond belief. He swallows before he responds. “Is that still true?”

Clarke is staring at the water again as she responds. “It was never true. You know that.”

He turns to toward her, and his sudden movement jerks her gaze back to him.  

“Actually, I don’t know that,” he says, his frustration spilling over. “As much as I wish I could read your mind sometimes, I don’t know anything when it comes to you.” His heartbeat thuds harder as all of his attempts at coming to terms with the enigma that is Clarke Griffin crash in on him at once. “Figuring you out is like trying to read hieroglyphics without a fucking Rosetta stone.”

She looks at him, her eyes softening slightly before she breathes in and works her way back to a brave place he hasn’t seen since the night they drank wine on her porch and talked about grief.  

“I’m afraid of a lot of things,” she says, and there it is. The truth.

“Really,” he says, because he can’t quite believe he’s heard it.

“I’m afraid of failure,” she says, her eyes determined and fragile all at once, “and I’m afraid of not being enough, but I’m the most afraid of losing people.”

His heart clenches so as not to break into a million pieces, because that is the answer to his question, the solution to the mystery he has been trying to solve for years, really. He has pieced it together over the course of the summer, but her admission of it does something to him that he can’t articulate, so he digs his hand into the bank and clutches a small bunch of pebbles. The grinding of the stones against each other feels good to him, and he begins to throw them one by one into the river, because he has no words.

And he wants to listen.

She watches him for a moment before looking back at the water, the _plop_ of pebbles landing in the pool a new addition to the late afternoon soundscape.

“After my dad died, I shut down for a while,” she says. “I became numb. My mother and my friends, my therapist, everyone told me that I needed to let go of my grief and open up to people again, to embrace life and all that bullshit. It wasn’t easy, and it took a really long time, but I did it. I opened up to people. I opened up to Wells, and then I lost him, too. And ever since then…”

He aches for her, because she has been so afraid for so long, but he has to say it.

“You push everyone away,” he finishes for her.

“Yeah,” she says, her voice almost a whisper. “I push everyone away.”

He throws the next stone particularly hard because he hates it, hates that the world has been cruel enough to her that she feels like she has to be alone to handle it.

“That’s a lonely way to live your life, Clarke,” he says, the rawness he feels inside coming through in his voice.

“You think I don’t know that?” she says, and she looks at him with a painful expression on her face, revealing a vulnerability that she never shows. He can count the times he’s seen it on one hand.

“I’m sure you know that,” he says, and he’s done now, done pretending, done letting her shut him out. “You’re the smartest person I know. But you know what? It’s really fucking lonely for me, too.”

She stares at him as he throws the last rock into the water, and then he turns to face her, really allowing himself to see her for the first time since she arrived.

“You crushed me last summer, Clarke,” he says, because pretending otherwise is no longer feasible. She needs to know.

Her face crumples slightly, and he hates that the truth causes her pain, but he isn’t willing to risk hiding the truth anymore.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

His gut is churning but he can’t stop. “I thought things were—I don’t know what I thought, but I didn’t expect you to just shut me out like you did. Which was stupid on my part, clearly.”

He had known, from the beginning, the risk he was taking, letting himself get attached to her. But he did it anyway. And he’d spend the better part of a year punishing himself for that.

“I didn’t know what else to do. So I did what I’ve always done,” she says, digging her foot into the dirt like she digs her pen into her paper when she’s aggressively doodling, and he feels a stab of affection for her that reinforces just how deeply entrenched in this he really is.

He laughs at himself sadly. “I try to tell myself, sometimes, that it would have been easier if we had just never gone down that road.”

She looks at him, and she is listening, hearing, absorbing, and he can’t stop. He needs her to know how impossible this has become for him.

“But I don’t really believe that,” he continues. “And I hate it, because now I know exactly what I can never have. And it is  _killing_  me.”

Her eyes take on an even sadder cast, but he keeps going.

“I thought, coming back here this summer, that I could handle being around you again. Because we’re both adults, we’re both professionals. We have a lot of things at stake here, and we need each other to keep this place going. We are so good together in that way, you know?”

And they are. They’re incredible together, an incredible pair, their love for L’Arche and their passion for the pursuit of knowledge bonding them together in ways he never knew he could be with another person. He hears Lincoln’s words— _she trusts you_ —and he trusts her too, completely.  

“We’re partners,” she says, echoing his thoughts, reassuring him on that front, even in the midst of this agonizing conversation.

They’re partners. But somewhere, somehow, they became more, and here they are.

“We are,” he says, but he feels his heart rate climbing, feels himself getting into the scariest part of an already-scary conversation. “But you getting trapped inside that cavern—seeing you in there and pulling you out—it made me realize that it doesn’t matter how hard you push me away, or how hard I try to stay away because that’s what you want, and I will _always_ want to give you what you want—it doesn’t matter.” He holds her gaze as he finishes. “I am always going to need more of you.”

Her eyes are wide as his words sink in, and he’s so caught up that he is swimming in the blue, letting himself fall into the abyss.

He shoves his hand out to gesture between them, to stir the space that has held so much over the years.

“This,” he says as he moves his hand. “If we keep doing  _this_ , I am going to lose my fucking mind. Because I have been in love with you for  _years_ , Clarke, and as much as it would make my life easier if it did, I don’t think that feeling is going anywhere.”

There.

No more holding back.

Her eyes remain wide and he feels like they are suspended there in the moment as his words sink in, as she works them through her mind and as he feels the onslaught of the aftermath of voicing them for the first time. He thinks back to his earlier resolve, to his plan for how to deal with this. Thoughts start to tumble.  

“And I have no idea what we’re going to do about it, because we have to keep the work at L’Arche going,” he says, and it’s painfully ironic that he is suddenly veering into something along the lines of business as usual, even though it’s clearly more than that.

He’s just not sure exactly where to go now that he’s _bared his fucking soul to her_.

“It’s not like either of us can walk away,” he continues. “So if you have any brilliant ideas for how to solve the problem of having to be around each other for the next, oh, decade at least, I’m all ears.”

Clarke stares at him, and he can’t read her expression until suddenly it’s like a wave goes through her, and some kind of outer shell breaks off, and she is walking towards him. He searches her eyes, and he has no idea what she is going to do until she reaches up, her hands finding the stubble of his jawline, and pulls him down to meet her in a kiss.

His heart jumps, leaping to the top of his chest, into his throat, and something like a sob escapes him as he is filled with a hesitant joy, because she’s not running away. She’s here, her lips against his as she falls into him, and he wraps his arms around her and pulls her to him, the feel of her body against his chest filling a void he’s been ignoring for a long time. They fall into each other, the kiss the only thing keeping them afloat, and he kisses her like he’s been wanting to for months, in the way that’s haunted his dreams. Their tongues tangle and there’s an electric jolt running through his blood as he allows himself to truly feel his physical reaction to her for the first time in ages, which is heavily compounded by the emotional reaction.

They break apart for air eventually, before the flames consume them, but that’s where it’s going, and Bellamy is scared, suddenly. He’s relieved too, of course, but also scared because she hasn’t said anything since he let it all come out. She is looking at him, searching his eyes, and he sees her lower lip tremble.

“I’ve been in love with you for years, too,” she says, her voice breaking as she chokes up.

The melting starts in his core and goes outward from there, the thawing of the fear that has gripped him since they started this conversation, because he’s been preparing himself to hear a completely different set of words than the ones she’s just said.

She loves him.

He loves her, and she loves him, and it’s just… _fuck_ , he hadn’t prepared himself for this moment, for the this realization, for this synchronicity. His arms tighten instinctively around her as the words sink in, and he realizes he is holding onto her for support, too. This is beyond what he could have expected, and his body is reeling as it catches up.

He lets out a breath of relief and tears prick at the back of his eyes, causing him to bite his lip slightly to keep them under control, and his gaze flies to the sky, to look at the stars that aren’t visible right now but that he knows are there, the meshwork of the universe that holds them here, that has gotten them to this point.

He feels a rush of anguish over lost time. It is painful, still, the residual effects of all that they have put each other through. “Then why have we been doing this to each other for so long?”

Clarke sighs into him, and he absorbs her weight as she leans against him, as she lets him hold her, truly _hold her up_ , for the first time.

“Because I wasn’t ready,” she breathes, her voice shaky, and she looks up at him, brave as hell in the face of her fear. “And because that’s just the kind of person I am. Bellamy, I’m angry,” she says, her voice apologetic, and he aches to assure her that she doesn’t have to be sorry about that. “I have a lot of baggage. Part of me pushing you away was me holding back because I wanted to protect you. From me. You’re—I thought you deserved more than just a husk of a person.”

 _What?_ He can’t believe it, even as the words make sense in that they follow the logic of the lonely world Clarke has constructed for herself. He doesn’t want her to ever feel lonely like that again.

He grabs her, pulling her into a protective embrace, because they are going to start _right now_ , breaking down these walls between them. His lips are in her hair, pressing kisses against her head until he finds her ear, and he kisses her there before he speaks.

“You are not a husk of a person,” he says, emphasizing his words with feeling. “You are the most complete person in the world, in my eyes.”

She settles into his embrace and again, the fact that she is letting him hold her, letting him comfort her, overwhelms him. “You were it for me, Clarke,” he says fiercely, “from the first day I met you. Every angry, complicated, brilliant inch of you.”

She shakes then and he knows that she is crying, she is letting go and actually crying, and he is crying to, because goddammit, there isn’t enough room in the world right now for the love that he feels for her.

“I thought you hated me when you first met me,” she says against his chest, and he can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the thought of him feeling anything like that towards her, but he knows it’s rooted in some difficult truths.

“I didn’t say you didn’t infuriate the hell out of me,” he says, because it’s true, he had been instantly infuriated by her. But he had also started falling for her, from that first moment he saw her storm out of the farmhouse, and it’s been endgame for him ever since. It just took him a while to fully realize it.

She laughs at this, and he’s happy, so fucking happy, even as she continues, “We were so awful to each other. And you were such a player that first summer.”

He pulls back slightly and reaches for her chin, gently tilting her head back with his fingers until he’s looking into her eyes, damp but shining with something good.

“Only because I couldn’t have you,” he said, and he needs her to know this. He needs for her to realize just how far back this goes for him. He thinks of the fantasies that used to torture him. “You have no idea, the things I used to imagine doing to you when we were in the middle of one of our fights.”

She shakes her head and smiles, a hint of wickedness creeping in, and that electric jolt goes through his body again.

“I guess you’ll have to show me, then,” she says, and he knows that soon he is going to need to show her a lot of things, because it’s all continuing to sink in that this is happening, and his heart and his body have an insatiable appetite for her that hasn’t been satisfied in a long, long time.

He needs her to understand the seriousness of this first, though. He needs her to know that this is real for him, that this is everything. _She_ is everything. “I mean it, Clarke,” he says, brown eyes locked on hers. “You are it for me. I know that’s crazy and ultimatum-like, but I don’t want to mess around anymore. I’m sick of wasting time with you. I need you—all of you—in my life.”

She pulls him close then, her arms wrapping around his back and her fingers digging into his bare skin.  

“How can you have such faith in me?” she asks.

And he loves her so much in that moment, because this is what she needs, has needed all along—someone to have faith in her, in every single part of her, from her intellect to her bravery to her badly bruised heart. And he can give her that.

“Because I’m angry and messed up, too,” he says, because she’s not alone in this. “You have baggage, well, so do I. But together, we work past that. You make me want to be a better person.”

And he can’t hold off from kissing her any longer, because she’s in his arms and she’s looking at him like he means something to her, and this time, he knows that she does.

She loves him.

Thank _god_.

The fall into a heated kiss, their hands starting to roam, their hunger for each other spilling over. The push and pull is mutual now as they stoke one another higher, and when she kisses the corner of his mouth he smiles against her lips and gladly heads for her neck, one of his favourite places in the world to linger.

“You’re already the best person,” she says as his lips move hotly over her skin. He can feel the erratic beat of her pulse as he kisses her there, the breathiness in her voice. “For me,” she continues, and he loves hearing it, loves hearing her articulate how she feels. “You are.”

She pulls his lips back to hers and the kiss conveys pure want. His hands find their way under her shirt and the feel of her skin beneath his fingers electrifies him. He feels that insane reaction that happens when they touch each other, where his energy flows into her and then comes back to him, intensified, the cycle continuing until their energies have blended and they reach equal levels of bliss.

She reaches down to pull off her shirt and his hands slide up and over her breasts, and his heart bursts as he gazes down at her—she is so fucking beautiful—rubbing her hardened nipples with his thumbs. She’s wearing a lace bra he’s never seen before that frames her gorgeous breasts perfectly, and he wonders how many other bras she has that he’s never seen. That he will be seeing, now, in the future.

They have a _future_. And he is very much looking forward to it, not least because he will get to do this all the time.

“Did I mention that I love every inch of your body, too?” he says as he undoes the clasp of her bra and slides it off.

She smiles and she blushes, her eyes already hazy with desire, and he knows he is full-on worshipping her right now but he can do that. He can worship her forever.

She smiles and she looks beautiful and _happy_ —he so rarely sees her happy that his heart cracks at the sight of it, and he resolves to make her as happy as he can, so he can see her like this all the time. She has a wicked gleam in her eyes and when she meets his gaze, something unsaid happens between them, something along the lines of _it has been waaaaay too long,_ and suddenly they are racing to get the rest of their clothes off.

Once they’re fully free he pulls her down onto the bank with him, the sun warming their skin as he runs his hands over her body and leans down to kiss her breasts again (they’ve been taunting him for _years_ , and, well, now he’s here to stay, so, _get used to it_ ). He could kiss her everywhere for hours, but he doesn’t want that right now.

Right now, he needs to be as close to her as he can possibly get.

Her eyes tell him that she wants the exact same thing, and she reaches for him as he rolls over top of her, guiding him to her center. He looks down at her and is filled with a deep welling of emotion, still reeling from the turmoil of the past 24 hours, of the whole summer, the whole year, really, because what have they been doing? How could they ever have doubted this?

“I’ve missed you so much,” he says, his voice breaking slightly with emotion and with the feel of her hand on him.

“I’ve missed you too,” she says softly, her eyes full of what he realizes is _love_.

Now. He needs her now. He thrusts inside, every nerve ending in his body on fire as he watches her face, watches the smile that spreads across it as she reacts to having him there, and he groans in pleasure and sweet relief. She feels incredible around him, and his hips begin to move in the way he knows she likes best, because he wants to give the entire world to her, and wants to tell her that with his body.

Soon, Clarke starts moaning and he knows she is getting close, which, thank _god_ , because the feel of her after so long is making it hard to hold back, but clearly she is in the same boat.

“Oh, Bellamy,” she cries out, and she pulls his face down to hers and kisses him as she comes, hard, all around him, falling apart beneath him, continuing to cry into his mouth. The taste of her lips and the sound of her voice push him over the edge, too, and he surges forward as he comes with her, pulsing over and over again inside of her, their heartbeats in sync. He rests his forehead against hers as they come down from the high and whispers, “I love you.”

When she says “I love you” back, they smile into each other, and he kisses her again as happiness pours over him. They are beginning to feel something bloom between them, something that they haven’t felt before.

They begin to feel peace.

 

**

 

They lay on the bank for a while, tangled up in each another, and with the weight between them gone, they are able to talk again, really talk. They talk about the site, what they’re going to do with the changes due the cave-in, what they plan to work on when they get back to Vancouver.

They also talk about what they’re going to do with this very real thing between them.

“Is your apartment like a Vancouver version of your cabin here? Because I could totally see it being like that,” Clarke says as she rests her head on his chest.

He laughs. To think that a year ago they got in a huge fight as a result of him asking her about where she lived, and now she’s doing the same thing to him, is crazy.

“It’s fine, I guess. Octavia forced me to put some stuff on the walls. Is your bed in Vancouver like a version of your bed here? Because I can live with that.”

“Oh,” she says, looking at him with a serious expression. “It’s even better.”

He laughs again. He loves laughing with her, loves talking in the future tense with her. “That’s quite the claim. I can’t wait to come and test it out, just to confirm that you’re not lying to me.”

She smiles back at him with what he realizes is slight shyness—opening up isn’t easy for her—and says, “I can’t wait to have you in it,”

He pulls her into a kiss and they quickly end up in a heated place because, well, _making up for lost time_ , and this time she ends up on her hands and knees as he slides into her from behind. She leans back to meet his thrusts and she uses her fingers on her clit—fuck, he _loves_ when she does that—and soon she’s coming apart around him again and he’s following her, and they land in a sweaty heap that smells of sex and contentment.

Clarke’s stomach growls suddenly and they’re both laughing, because they really have been out here for hours, and the lightning bugs are starting to dance everywhere—ridiculously beautiful surroundings for a life-changing scenario.

“We should probably go back,” she says, reaching for her clothes.

“Hmm, I’d be fine with camping out here for a bit longer,” he jokes as he finds his clothes too, and they both start to get dressed.

“God,” Clarke says. “It just hit me that they’re all going to flip out when they realize what’s going on. Especially Octavia.”

“Maybe this will finally shut her up. She’s been giving me grief all summer,” he says with fondness, because really, Octavia had pushed him in some key ways to face things he needed to face, even if he would never admit that to her.

“Me too!” Clarke says. “Well, I guess they’ve all known for a while anyway. This is just… different, because now… This is real. This is…” and she faces him as she trails off, her eyes serious.

“This is everything,” he says, holding her gaze.

“We’re doing this,” she says, weighing the words, because it’s a declaration, really, and she’s seeking his input.

He takes her hand, slides his fingers between hers.

“We’re doing this,” he says, and it is an agreement, a promise.

Clarke smiles at him, full of trust, and he smiles back, full of love. He tugs her hand and they start to walk back to camp. It’s been a tough road to this point, but the walls are finally down, they’re gone, they’re _undone_ , and the future lies before them, wide open and full of possibility.

They’re doing this.

Together.

 

_Fin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember that time I thought I would write a few chapters from a different character's perspective so I could have some character study fun? And now we are HERE, and it's done, it's longer than the original, and I am so in love with the entire process it's taken to get to this point. I've gotten to know some awesome fellow writers and fangirls through this story, and I want you all to know that I couldn't have done this without you. I love the bond these two characters have, I love the way the actors give it to us on screen, I love playing with it here. I'm sad to see this one end, but I have a feeling I'm going to need to entertain myself this summer, and happy epilogue plot bunnies are taunting me (suddenly I want to write FLUFF? what is WRONG with me?), so who knows where we'll go. THANK YOU for reading, and I can't wait to hear your thoughts, and to keep playing with you on Tumblr, and helping each other get through the shipping experience. Bellarke 5EVER xoxoxo ;)


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